Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Elections board puts off decision on Kobach Commission request

Posted in:

Illinois

* Catching up on this one from late yesterday afternoon…

The State Board of Elections put off a decision Tuesday on the latest request for Illinois voter information made by a panel formed by President Donald Trump to look into his claims of voting irregularities in last year’s presidential election.

Instead, the board is sending a letter requesting more information about the purpose of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Illinois officials also want to know whether any information provided truly could be kept confidential, as the federal panel pledged and as Illinois law requires.

The privacy issue is a critical one for state election officials. In early July, the bipartisan elections board rejected an initial appeal for “publicly available” voter data by the federal panel because, under Illinois law, it had no such information available that could be publicly disclosed.

The elections board had agreed to consider the latest request from the federal panel after it issued a new request that vowed to keep voter information confidential.

* Ami Gandhi with the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights made an interesting claim in a recent letter to the Illinois State Board of Elections…

Voters in Illinois and across the country have been contacting election officials asking to be removed from the rolls rather than have their personal information turned over to the Commission. The Commission should have the burden of demonstrating that voter information will be kept private and secure, especially given the ongoing threats to election security both locally and nationally. We urge the State Board of Elections to refrain from turning over our voter information until the Commission has sufficiently safeguarded against misuse of this information.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 3:17 pm

Comments

Sorry, a vow from the Kobach Kangaroo Kourt doesn’t cut it.

There is no statutory basis, either on the federal or state levels, for SBOE to compell the state to participate in this fishing expedition.

To borrow from the MS GOP Secretary of State, if Kobach wants to fish in Illiois, he can jump in Lake Michigan.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 3:26 pm
Isn’t this the same commission that mistakenly released the personal e-mail addresses of those who expressed concern with privacy?

Comment by Jocko Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 3:45 pm
I know political parties access this stuff all the time. However, if there is no “public access” under Illinois law then there is nothing to give them
Just for fun we could all remove our names from election rolls then do same day registration and vote on Election Day
Furthermore if Autimatic Registration kicks in and the Feds have access then you are automatically registered and info goes right to Feds. How nice

Comment by DuPage Saint Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 3:50 pm
+++ - wordslinger - Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 3:26 pm: Sorry, a vow from the Kobach Kangaroo Kourt doesn’t cut it.
There is no statutory basis, either on the federal or state levels, for SBOE to compell the state to participate in this fishing expedition.
To borrow from the MS GOP Secretary of State, if Kobach wants to fish in Illiois, he can jump in Lake Michigan. +++

Wordslinger, not so fast on the statutory basis assertion. Several sections of the Illinois Election Code contain identical provisions as follows:

…To protect the privacy and confidentiality of voter registration information, the disclosure of electronic voter registration records to any person or entity other than to a State or local political committee and other than to a governmental entity for a governmental purpose is specifically prohibited … The individual representing a political committee requesting copies of such tapes shall make a sworn affidavit that the information shall be used only for bona fide political purposes, including by or for candidates for office or incumbent office holders. Such tapes, discs or other electronic data shall not be used under any circumstances by any political committee or individuals for purposes of commercial solicitation or other business purposes…”

The Illinois Election Code permits governmental entities to obtain the same voter data that political committees can get. They can’t get DL numbers or the last 4 of SSN, but they get a fair portion of the data.

Comment by titan Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 3:59 pm
Trump’s not crazy or dumb.
I learned today that Trump beat Clinton on election day among citizens voting that day by 13%, according to analysts like Steve Schale who works for the Democrats.

Yet after all the other votes were counted, Trump ended up losing by 2%.

The White House wants to find out how this happened. Any president would want to know how they could go from 13% up to 2% down, and want to kmow what safeguards are in place to make this early voting tamperproof.

OH - and NBC reported Schales’ figures, not a right wing group.

So there’s that, huh?
Trump isn’t crazy or foolish at all.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:00 pm
Yeah. He’s not crazy. You know, those 3 million illegal votes and all.

This Commission already has a conclusion. Perhaps if someone other than Kobach were heading it I’d have faith in their intentions.

As wordslinger said. Go jump in Lake Michigan.

Comment by Demoralized Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:04 pm
Election fraud and election mismanagement are real issues, just read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s coverage last year of fraud in Democratic primaries which resulted in the court overturning election results. The idea that the state can withhold voter roll information that they routinely give out to campaigns and private companies is ludicrous.

Comment by Downstate Illinois Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:05 pm
Doesn’t the Illinois GOP already have the voter data?

Comment by Thomas Paine Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:24 pm
@VanillaMan–
Can you point me to what you’re talking about? I can’t seem to find it, my Google-fu is weak today.

Comment by Actual Red Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:24 pm
@DownstateIllinois - please do not equate what happened in a special Missouri legislative race with the integrity of the Illinois system that I have been working with for decades.

And Illinois should absolutely not share its data with the Kobach Commission.

Comment by illini Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:26 pm
It’s silly to believe that a political party is going to do nothing about this. Auditing. Verification. These are either there or they are not.

Early voting has grown phenomenally over the past 20 years. Eventually, one of the political parties is going to demand some kind of universal accountability.

We went through this a number of times in history. This president’s actions aren’t much different from earlier voting controversies.

Do you support early voting? Then defend it by meeting this administration’s demands for accountability and proof. I don’t see a problem with it’s mission.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:32 pm
Sure.
It’s new on NBC.
About the 2016 race.
Hillary’s got that new book out and it ties into what happened after October 28th, 2016.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Aug 23, 17 @ 4:35 pm