North Carolinians troubled by a controversial request by President Trump’s election fraud commission to collect voter information may find some solace in recent news that the project has been put on hold.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is asking states to hold off on sending voter information to the White House by its July 14 deadline until a lawsuit filed against the commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit privacy group based in Washington, D.C., is resolved.
According to court documents, the voter fraud commission asked state election officials this morning to pause the request until the judge issues a ruling on the lawsuit.
The latest twist comes after the White House commission on voting integrity, headed by Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, sent a letter asking all fifty states to provide voters’ names, addresses, birthdays, political parties, last four digits of their social security numbers, and voting histories from 2006 onward.
The request drew fire from some Democrats and civil rights groups, who said it would be used to validate voter suppression, particularly among minority voters. Some were quick to point out that the director of ACLU’s Voting Rights Project has called Kobach the “King of Vote Suppression.”
A handful of states immediately rejected the request, and, as the INDY reported last week, North Carolina’s Board of Elections said it would only release information that was already publicly available on the board’s website, such as the name, address, party affiliation, and participation of voters.
The request has already made many Tar Heels wary. According to the News & Observer, the board “has received hundreds of calls and emails about its decision to send publicly available data. Some voters have asked to cancel their voter registration, which state officials are trying to discourage.”
