Lawsuit challenging SC transfer of voter data to federal government ends with agreement

COLUMBIA — A lawsuit over South Carolina sending voter information to the Department of Justice is officially over, weeks after state and federal agencies reached an agreement meant to protect voters’ privacy.

The State Election Commission approved the agreement on April 28, answering the question of how it will respond to the Trump administration’s request to review voter data while weighing privacy concerns.

The lawsuit was dismissed May 21.

The nine-page memorandum of understanding approved on a 4-1 vote addressed the privacy concerns Calhoun County voter Anne Crook raised in her lawsuit filed last year, soon after the federal agency began asking states to hand over information on voters.

Crook sued to stop the Election Commission from releasing information before signing an agreement to make sure voters’ data was kept private. In court filings last fall, Crook asked that any agreement the state reached with the federal government restrict how the agency could use the data, prohibit sharing it with anyone else and add safeguards to make sure the information stayed confidential.

Because the agreement fulfilled those requests, it made “the remaining issues raised herein moot,” read the order of dismissal attorneys for both sides signed last week.

Judge Daniel Coble, who also signed off on the dismissal, previously declined to stop the Election Commission from sharing voter information, noting state officials said they wouldn’t act until they had an agreement in place.

Under the agreement, the state provided voters’ full names, birthdays, addresses and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. Other than Social Security numbers, that information is already available for purchase from the election agency. Campaigns and political parties buy that voter information to aid their marketing decisions.

To protect voters’ privacy, all data sent to the federal government must be encrypted, with an extra layer of protection added to the Social Security numbers.

The requirement prohibited the Department of Justice from sharing the information with any other agencies.

The state’s terms specified that the state will not automatically remove any voters the Department of Justice finds ineligible, which the Trump administration said was the goal of receiving states’ voter rolls.