West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Kris Warner, asked a federal judge to toss U.S. government demands for unredacted voter registration data.
Now, the U.S. Department of Justice is arguing against West Virginia’s position. DOJ entered a response brief in the case this week.
The federal judge assigned to the case is Thomas Johnston, a George W. Bush appointee.
The Department of Justice kicked the whole case off weeks ago by filing a lawsuit to compel West Virginia officials to release the list that would include state voters’ information like birth dates, residential addresses, drivers license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
The Department of Justice asserts that it needs unredacted voter registration lists to assess West Virginia’s compliance with the list-maintenance requirements of the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.
The Justice Department has filed federal lawsuits against 30 states, so far, plus the District of Columbia, seeking orders compelling them to turn over their data.
So far, federal district courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s suits on the merits in California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Arizona.
As in the other states, lawyers for West Virginia argue the U.S. Department of Justice request is legally deficient because it lacks a specific factual basis and pursues a pretextual purpose related to immigration enforcement rather than voting rights.
And attorneys for the State of West Virginia maintain that the voter lists are internally created databases exempt from federal production requirements and that disclosure would violate state and federal privacy laws.
The federal government argues that Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 serves as a specialized investigative tool allowing the Attorney General to demand such records to verify compliance with federal election laws.
Although West Virginia’s Secretary of State maintains that the request is overly broad and violates privacy statutes, the DOJ asserts that federal authority overrides state-level confidentiality concerns.
“Put another way, West Virginia law makes certain information confidential from public disclosure,” wrote lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice. “But the United States is not asking for public disclosure of West Virginia’s SVRL.
“It is requesting an intergovernmental transfer of the data authorized by federal laws and regulations – which West Virginia’s statute already accounts for – to assess the West Virginia’s compliance with federal election law. Pursuant to the CRA’s privacy provisions and the Privacy Act, none of the information obtained will be publicly disclosed.”