By Bryan Lowry and Hunter Woodall | Tribune News Services
President Donald Trump and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach still want troves of information about voters. Just not yet.
In a court filing Monday, Kobach said Trump’s voting commission has told states to hold off on sharing the data until after a judge’s ruling in a lawsuit. That presidential commission, which is conducting a national study of voter fraud, faces multiple lawsuits for alleged privacy and transparency violations.
Kobach, the commission’s vice chair and a candidate for Kansas governor, asked every state and the District of Columbia for data on every voter, including names, addresses and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The request has inspired national controversy, prompting criticism from both Republican and Democratic election officials around the country.
Related: Trump’s Voter Commission Includes Ex-Ohio Official Who Accidentally Released Voters’ SSNs
The Electronic Privacy Information Center [EPIC] last week asked a federal court to grant a temporary restraining order against the commission. The Washington, D.C.-based privacy organization has alleged that “voters’ personal data will not be secure” and charged that Kobach’s call for the voter records “violated the informational privacy rights of millions of Americans.”
