Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft says Missouri law compels him to comply with a request to turn over voter data to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
Ashcroft, a Republican, said in a statement: "My willingness to comply with the request for publicly available data is not a political or personal choice. It's a decision based on the laws governing my office and the information we have. No voter preferences, political affiliations, or confidential information will be provided."
Maura Browning, a spokeswoman for Ashcroft, said that in accordance with Missouri’s Sunshine Law, the office will only provide names, address, border precincts and whether voters cast ballots or not. The office will not provide Social Security numbers, she said. Because Missouri has open primaries, party affiliation is not collected or included.
Most states are resisting or refusing to comply with the request for voter registration information by the commission created by President Donald Trump, who has said he believes voter fraud was widespread in the 2016 presidential election. On June 29 the commission's co-chair, Kansas elections chief Kris Kobach, sent a letter to his counterparts in the 50 states and the District of Columbia asking for voter
records, including names, party affiliations and voting history.
“At least 29 states are pushing back or outright refusing to comply with the Trump administration’s request for voter registration data,” according to a June 30 report by The Hill. The pushback is bipartisan, with red and blue states alike questioning the intentions of the commission’s request.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in an official statement that his state is denying the request because it “would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach.”
"It's obviously very concerning when the federal government is attempting to get the name, address, birth date, political party and social security number of every voter in the country," said former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander in a statement. "I certainly don't trust the Trump Administration with that information, and people across the country should be outraged.” After losing his race for Senate in 2016, Kander, a Democrat, now heads a voting rights advocacy group called Let America Vote.
The issue of sharing personal data for inclusion in federal databases has been a hot-button issue in Missouri's legislature. Until this year, Missouri refused to comply with the Real ID Act. That federal law was passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks in an effort to strengthen the security of identification used by passengers boarding commercial flights. The legislature passed a law complying with Real ID this spring; it will take effect next month.
“This uproar is just a little bit confusing," said Browning. "The truth of the matter is that political parties and candidates request this information all the time.”
Kander's group isn't the only organization opposing the sharing of data identifying voters. American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri Legal Director Tony Rather said in a statement that the collection of voter data was “nothing more than a guise for laying the foundation for more voter suppression across the nation.” In the same statement, released on the ACLU website, the ACLU said it will file a Sunshine Law request after Ashcroft turns over the voter data to see whether he released "'Missourians' private information.”
Supervising editor is Mike Jenner.