By JULIA SHUMWAY/Oregon Capital Chronicle
The U.S. Justice Department sued Oregon and Maine on Tuesday for rejecting demands that the states turn over troves of personal voter information.
A 22-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene names Oregon and Secretary of State Tobias Read and alleges that the state broke federal laws by failing to provide electronic copies of statewide voter registration lists and information regarding voter list maintenance procedures. A separate lawsuit names Maine and its secretary of state, Shenna Bellows.
In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said states can’t pick and choose which federal laws they follow.
“American citizens have a right to feel confident in the integrity of our electoral process, and the refusal of certain states to protect their citizens against vote dilution will result in legal consequences,” Dhillon said.
Before joining the Justice Department, Dhillon was a legal adviser to President Donald Trump’s failed 2020 campaign. Her law firm worked unsuccessfully to overturn election results in the 2022 midterms in key states, including Arizona.
Read, a Democrat elected last year with promises to defend Oregon’s pioneering vote-by-mail system, said he looked forward to fighting the case in court. Oregon is already suing the federal government over Trump’s attempts to end mail voting, along with 36 other lawsuits.
“If the president wants to use the DOJ to go after his political opponents and undermine our elections, I look forward to seeing them in court,” Read said. “I stand by my oath to the people of Oregon, and I will protect their rights and privacy.”
The Justice Department said it’s alleging that Read violated federal law by refusing to share an unredacted electronic copy of the state’s voter registration list, provide information on the state’s voter list maintenance program or disclose registration information for any ineligible voters.
Last month, Read told Justice Department officials that turning over the data they requested — including the full name, date of birth, residential address and driver’s license number or partial Social Security number for all of Oregon’s more than 3 million registered voters — would violate Oregonians’ constitutional right to privacy.
Instead, he said, the federal government is free to file a records request and pay a $500 fee for a copy of the statewide voter list that includes names, addresses, political party and birth year, but not a voter’s birthday, Social Security number or driver’s license number.
He maintained that the Justice Department’s request sought more information than required by federal laws, including the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002. He said providing that data would certainly violate state laws.
The lawsuit alleges that Oregon provides all that data to a private group through its membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit organization that helps its 25 member states and Washington, D.C., track whether voters have moved and identify duplicate registrations.
A bipartisan group of state election officials formed ERIC in 2012, but in recent years it’s been the subject of a disinformation campaign propagated by right-wing activists. Several Republican-led states have left the organization.
According to a frequently asked questions page on ERIC’s website, states provide data including birth dates, driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers, but only after applying a “cryptographic one-way hash” to ensure that data can’t be read by humans. Because all states use the same hash, the organization’s algorithms can identify duplicates without any person actually seeing a person’s Social Security number or other sensitive data.
The Justice Department asked for all information in the form of a database, though it said Oregon could submit that database through an encrypted email.
The Justice Department sought information about anyone removed from voter rolls because they were determined not to be a citizen, deemed incompetent by a court or convicted of a felony. Oregon last year identified more than 1,500 people erroneously added to voter rolls through no fault of their own because of clerical errors at the Motor Vehicle Services Division, which since 2016 has automatically forwarded information of U.S. citizens who obtain or update driver’s licenses so they can be registered to vote.
Oregon’s 1987 sanctuary law, the first in the nation, bars state and local officials from providing information or resources for the federal government to enforce immigration laws without a court order signed by a judge. The Department of Justice is sharing voter roll data with the Department of Homeland Security, Stateline reported last week.
For me, the only conclusion I can come up with is that the
state is trying to hide something. Transparency would prevent that.
I don’t understand why you would not turn over what they are asking for. It makes me feel as though you are hiding something. Transparency is important and I am not for mail in voting anyway. I think if you want to vote then get up and go and vote and you should be a citizen and have ID proving just that.
Thank you Secretary Read for protecting Oregonians privacy and personal information from the prying eyes of our current federal administration. I am already unhappy with what has happened to my information as a result of DOGE making illegal, unsecured downloads of all SSI recipients. This is not about transparency. This is about control. Our current administration is attempting to exert control over all aspects of our lives. That is not a function of a democratic government. And it chills my soul.