Elections board rebuts charge of feds’ ‘unfettered’ access to NC data
The North Carolina State Board of Elections is pushing back against a charge from Democrats and their allies that a recent settlement with the US Justice Department will give the federal government “unfettered access” to voters’ private information.
The elections board rebutted that charge in a federal court filing Tuesday. The filing responds to a request from the Democratic National Committee and a group working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm to revisit the September settlement of a Justice Department lawsuit against the state elections board. The suit originally filed in May focused on North Carolina’s compliance with voter registration requirements in the federal Help America Vote Act.
Federal government lawyers filed a court document Friday asking US Chief District Judge Richard Myers to reject the requests from the DNC and Elias’ clients, a group called the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans.
The elections board’s court filing Tuesday also asked Myers to deny the requests from Democrats and their allies.
Lawyers for the state board explained its registration repair project. It’s designed to bring North Carolina’s voter registration list into compliance with HAVA. The board is seeking a driver’s license number or last four digits of a Social Security number from registered voters whose records do not include that information.
The court filing also addressed several complaints the DNC and Elias’ clients raised about the settlement.
Both groups raised concerns about the settlement giving the federal government access to voters’ driver’s license numbers, dates of birth, and partial Social Security numbers. The Justice Department is the plaintiff in the case.
“The consent judgment in this action permits Plaintiff to request information about the registration repair project, including appropriate voter records in the State’s HAVA List, to ensure the remedial project is working as anticipated and in compliance with this consent judgment,” the elections board’s lawyers wrote. “Contemplating that it is feasible that some of the information requested may encompass confidential data, State Board Defendants took steps to ensure that any such confidential or sensitive information would remain protected.”
“To address that concern, and ensure that no such unlawful use or disclosure of confidential information arises during the compliance period, the consent judgment specifically reserves the right for the State Board Defendants ‘to seek a protective order from the Court,’” the court filing continued.
“Thus, contrary to NC ARA’s assertion, this provision does not grant unfettered access to North Carolina’s voter records,” elections board lawyers wrote. “Rather, the agreement states that if any information is requested, the State Board expressly preserves the right to seek a protective order from this Court to ensure any confidential information is adequately protected. The United States is also required to keep the information securely and treat it consistently with the Privacy Act.”
“Thus, it allows neither automatic access or unfettered access in violation of either North Carolina or Federal law,” the court filing added. “Instead, it is deliberately constrained access, the bounds of which will ultimately be determined by this Court if such a request is made.”
The elections board also answered charges that the settlement ultimately could disenfranchise some North Carolina voters.
“[T]he terms of the consent judgment in this action expressly state that no voter will be disenfranchised or removed from the registration rolls as a result of this order,” according to the court filing. “This Court decreed the parties’ agreement in paragraph 6(d) of the consent judgment that all provisional ballots voted in accordance with this process will be counted for federal contests regardless of whether they present the missing information or the missing information is validated, so long as the voter is otherwise eligible to vote under state law.”
“Paragraph 6(e) expressly states that the provisional voting process shall not, by itself, result in any voter being removed from the list of registered voters in state or Federal elections in North Carolina,” elections board lawyers wrote. “If that was not sufficiently clear, paragraph 8 additionally confirms that nothing in the Order itself or the remedial plan outlined therein permits the removal of an individual except as permitted under the National Voter Registration Act (‘NVRA’).”
“Thus, the argument that the consent judgment in the instant case would disenfranchise voters or result in their removal is expressly contradicted by the terms of the consent judgment itself,” the court filing explained.
The elections board rejected accusations of “collusion” with the Justice Department.
“The State Board … was well on its way to implementing remedial measures before this action was filed in response to pre-election HAVA complaints, and related litigation filed both pre-election and post-election,” the board’s lawyers wrote. “The fact that the instant action raised issues that the State Board was already resolving and was therefore itself resolved quickly is not evidence that the State Board ‘capitulated’ in response to the suit. If anything, it is evidence that this action was likely not necessary in the first place, but that once it was filed, further litigation was likewise inappropriate.”
Some concerns outlined by the DNC and Elias’ clients will be addressed in other ongoing federal lawsuits, the elections board explained. Those suits involve the elections board, DNC, and Republican National Committee. The state’s settlement with the Justice Department addresses only federal elections.
“Elections board rebuts charge of feds’ ‘unfettered’ access to NC data” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.
