More than two months after the U.S. Department of Justice asked Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore for information about registered voters, Amore has finally responded:
No.
At least, the Trump administration won’t get anything beyond the state voter lists already publicly available — typically requested by filling out an online form and paying $25 — though Amore indicated he will hand over the information to the Justice Department for free.
The Justice Department, which has sent similar requests to states nationwide, wanted more: Rhode Island voters’ Social Security and driver’s license numbers, even though this data is protected under state and federal laws.
“The current presidential administration has a long track record of seeking to, and in some cases, succeeding in, interfering in the operation of elections and sowing seeds of distrust between the general voting public and the very election processes that maintain and further our democracy,” Amore said in a statement Tuesday. “I will not participate in an unsubstantiated search for data and information.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has continued to promote false claims about election fraud, directing federal agencies to “scrub” voter rolls he claims are rife with noncitizens, even though documentation of noncitizen voting is extremely rare.
Amore’s refusal to comply with the federal directive comes the same day as the Justice Department sued Maine and Oregon for refusing to turn in personal information about state-registered voters and applicants, along with state election administrators.
In a letter Tuesday to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, Amore hinted that legal action would be the only way he would turn over personal information about Rhode Island voters.
“While I am pleased to voluntarily provide you with the public voter rolls, as you requested, as Secretary of State, I must protect the personally identifiable information of Rhode Islanders,” Amore said in the letter. “I will not be providing the information to you absent a demonstration of a proper legal basis to do so or a court order.”
In 2017, Rhode Island was asked to supply President Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission with personal information from the state’s voter rolls, including the last four digits of Social Security numbers for voters dating back to 2006. Then-Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea and Gov. Gina Raimondo refused to comply with handing over any sensitive information not normally included in a standard public records request, according to news reports.
While the 2017 probe was sent to all 50 states, the latest set of requests initially centered on Democratic and swing states. As of Monday, 33 states received written requests for information from the civil or criminal divisions of the Justice Department, or both, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Responses have varied. At least 10 states have supplied the voter data that is already publicly available, or offered instructions on how the federal administration can find it. Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales confirmed last week that he also handed over state voters’ Social Security and drivers’ license numbers — the first known state to supply personal data. On the other end of the spectrum, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told the Justice Department to “go jump in the Gulf of Maine” during a July 29 press conference.
A history lesson
Amore, a former high school history teacher, cited court decisions and federal laws protecting this information in his response to Dhillon. They include the E-Government Act of 2002, signed into law under Republican George W. Bush, and the Privacy Act of 1974, meant to guard against overreaching government surveillance on the heels of the Watergate scandal.
“You fail to show that any of the statutory prerequisites for the protection of personally identical information under those acts is in place,” Amore wrote.
The Justice Department first emailed Amore’s office on July 8, proposing a phone call to discuss “potential information-sharing agreements,” on state registered voters. Federal officials did not explicitly say what information they wanted about Rhode Island voters.
While Amore had not directly answered the Justice Department’s request before Tuesday, he had blasted Trump publicly for sowing distrust in elections, including the “false claim” that the 2020 election was stolen. Amore tapped the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office for help reviewing the initial request. The AG’s office responded to the Justice Department on the state’s behalf on July 31 to ask for more information, Faith Chybowski, a spokesperson for Amore’s office, said in an email.
On Sept. 3, however, Amore’s office, along with representatives from the AG’s office and state Board of Elections, met virtually with Justice Department lawyers, according to Amore’s office. Five days later, Dhillon wrote to Amore, asking for state voters’ driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers within 14 days.
Dhillon’s letter cited the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and the 1960 Civil Rights Act as justification for the administration’s probe.
Amore, however, contended that neither federal law authorizes the Justice Department to access state voter data apart from lawsuits or investigations into illegal voter disenfranchisement. Neither of these reasons was named by Dhillon in his letter.
“I am confident that Rhode Island is a leader in secure, accessible elections,” Amore said in a statement. “Registering to vote requires the provision of personal information – and that information is provided with the trust and understanding that the government here in Rhode Island will do everything in our power to protect it. This is not a responsibility I take lightly.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment Wednesday.
Tim Rondeau, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, said the office had no additional comment regarding its participation in the meeting with Justice Department officials or Amore’s response. Chris Hunter, a spokesperson for the state elections board, acknowledged requests for comment but did not provide a response Wednesday.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
