Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the DOJ, Harmeet Dhillon, just responded after a South Carolina state judge blocked the state from giving voter data over to the federal government for the purpose of ensuring the rolls are accurate.
Here’s what she wrote:
????????????This @TheJusticeDept’s @CivilRights will not stand for a state court judge’s hasty nullification of our federal voting laws. I will allow nothing to stand in the way of our mandate to maintain clean voter rolls.
One Citizen, One Vote! ????
This is the lowdown on the case she’s referring to from DC Examiner:
A judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from accessing the sensitive information of millions of South Carolina voters.
Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday, stemming from a lawsuit challenging whether the South Carolina Election Commission can give voters’ data to the Department of Justice.
The DOJ earlier this year requested that the state hand over the data of more than 3.3 million registered voters in the state. The data included their names, addresses, birthdates, driver’s license numbers, and last four digits of their Social Security numbers. Other states saw similar requests.
Anne Crook, a South Carolina voter, sued the SCEC last week, arguing that disclosing her personal information would violate her right to privacy under the state’s constitution.
“I think most people have some questions about why the federal government wants their data,” Crook’s attorney, state Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto (D), wrote in the court filing.
Goodstein wrote in the restraining order, “There is a likelihood that immediate and irreparable damage will result to Plaintiff if her personal information data is released in violation of her right to privacy.”
The SCEC had not yet handed over the data following a back-and-forth with the DOJ over what is legally permissible and deadlines. The DOJ originally gave the state an Aug. 21 deadline to comply, but most recently extended the deadline to Sept. 5.