No, you don’t need SS#s to root out election fraud
Texas is one of 43 states pushing back against the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity’s broad request for voter information.
Secretary of State Rolando Pablos said his office will provide public information that is readily available only and “protect the private information of Texas citizens” — including Social Security numbers and information on voters’ military status and felony convictions.
Good.
It’s encouraging to see that state leaders are not convinced of the president’s ill-conceived mission to smite the alleged voter fraud.
In truth, we wouldn’t mind if Pablos were willing to be even less obliging, as some of his counterparts in other states have decided to be.
Last month, Trump’s voter fraud commission sent letters to every secretary of state across the U.S. requesting the names, addresses, dates of birth, voting histories, criminal records, military status, political party when available and the last four digits of Social Security numbers of voters dating back to 2006.
A surprising amount of that information is part of the public record and wouldn’t be difficult to obtain and compile.
For example, most addresses are public. As are birthdates and voter status.
Whom you vote for and party affiliation are private, but which primary you participate in is public.
The commission’s request is troubling because in addition to names and addresses, it asks for sensitive personal information. (Why in the world would the commission require Social Security numbers to root out fraud?)
Moreover, the commission was established to satisfy Trump’s claim that rampant fraud in the November election cost him millions of votes. News flash, Mr. President: You still won.
Reasonable people can and will debate about the frequency and severity of voter fraud. Many on the left insist it’s an anomaly. Folks on the right tend to believe it’s frequent and insidious. The reality is probably somewhere in between.
In this case, Trump is not being reasonable. And compromising voters’ personal information is never tolerable.
This story was originally published July 10, 2017 at 5:41 PM with the headline "No, you don’t need SS#s to root out election fraud."