Posted on 07/01/2017 8:36:37 AM PDT by Drew68
Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann will not comply with a request from President Donald Trump’s administration asking for detailed voter file information, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and birthdates.
Hosemann, a Republican who did not endorse Trump during the presidential campaign, said his office has not yet received a letter from the administration. But he said if and when he does receive one, he will reject it outright. Hosemann is the one of the first Republican secretaries of state in the country to publicly reject the commission’s request, joining several Democratic colleagues in bucking the request.
“They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from,” Hosemann said in a statement on Friday. “Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our state’s right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes.”
All 50 secretaries of state received a request for the information in a letter this week from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who serves as vice chairman for Trump’s new Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
The letter seeks the information to “study the registration and voting processes used in federal elections” that may “undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of federal elections processes.”
The commission’s request asks for the full names of registered voters, their dates of birth, registered addresses, voting history, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers – all dating back to 2006.
Kobach was fined $1,000 by a federal judge last week for making “patently misleading representations” about documents he took to a November meeting with Trump that relate to federal voting law.
He told the Kansas City Star on Thursday that the personal data would be hosted on a secure server run by the federal government, and that the request for Social Security numbers was meant to ensure one person isn’t registered more than once.
Hosemann successfully won a 2014 federal case on the argument that state voter file information should be kept private and not shared with the federal government. He has gone to great lengths since the November presidential election to assure the public that there was no voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.
Twenty-two Mississippians sponsored by Texas-based True the Vote filed a federal lawsuit against Hosemann and the state of Mississippi in 2014, seeking birth dates of Mississippi’s 1.8 million registered voters. Many of those 22 plaintiffs were supporters of state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who narrowly lost the Republican primary runoff to U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. McDaniel earned more votes than Cochran in the primary.
In court and in public, Hosemann pushed back, calling the lawsuit “ill conceived, incoherent, misguided, poorly drafted, filed in the wrong court and probably politically motivated,” saying all voter file information was available to anyone after properly redacting the voter’s birth date and social security numbers.
“The Mississippi Legislature enacted a law to protect your birth date and social security number from public dissemination,” Hosemann said in a statement in July 2014. “This out-of-state company (True the Vote) wants your birth date or wants you, the taxpayer, to pay the redacting and copying for them. Your locally elected circuit clerks are following the law.”
The federal district court ruled in Hosemann’s favor, tossing the case and stating the state restrictions on providing voter identification did not violate the federal voting rights act.
Hosemann touted the smooth election process last fall.
“Based upon further information, I have to adjust my thinking here.”
This is the INTERNET, pal, you’re not supposed to have an open mind. You’re supposed to call everyone an IDIOT if they say something that conflicts with what you think.
(LOL, I always admire people with an open mind)
“Voter fraud is widespread through out the nation. No more “requests”, time to empanel a grand jury and issue fed subpoenas.”
Agree, but it does make sense to try to first shake loose the ones that are the worst - the ones that don’t comply. Makes it easier to deal with judges that may be open to both sides.
My thoughts, too. Really, these should just be about putting pressure on the States to fix their voter rolls. But the Feds have no right or power to request such - it isn't like opposing a poll tax or similar....
Ohh that is going to leave a mark. HEH HEH
hold on.
i empathize with both sides here. there is a fraud problem that needs to be handled.
but the Constitution does give the states the power to handle their own elections.
the Civil Rights movement somehow got the Feds deeply involved in the southern state’s electoral process, and while it certainly helped make sure people were not denied the right to vote, it has become a problem making sure the feds don’t become overtly involved in a state’s process.
we should tread carefully.
a compromise of some sort ought to be sought—or, perhaps, Hosemann is misunderstanding what is a benign request. He ought to want to be certain there is no fraud in the process.
I am just very concerned when the federal government get involved in what is a state matter.
Hope this makes sense.
Just turn off Mississippi’s EBT cards, and in 72 hours it will be an apocalyptic nightmare and they will overnight priority mail Trump everything he wants.
There was considerable collusion in Mississippi between the corrupt Establishment RINOs (led by Haley Barbour) and the Democrats, centering on the despicable 2014 Senate primary race between Thad the Barnyard Cad Cochran and Chris McDaniel. They had large numbers of Democrats illegally flood the GOP primary runoff to install Cochran. The Feds taking a look at this would expose the corruption and collusion, and Hosemann appears to be going the extra mile to protect the morally bankrupt Barbourcrats in Mississippi.
Protecting against election fraud is a listed function of the federal government. Constitution Article IV, Section 4:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.How does the federal government act to "guarantee ... a Republican Form of Government"? By vigorously investigating and punishing any form of vote fraud, or any attempt by state governments to not abide by the will of their citizens.
Note also "and shall protect each of them against Invasion" : what is happening with our borders, if not invasion?
I’ll give 2 to 1 odds that Trump hands this weeny his a$$.
Has the Senate to request the information and then send in the FEDS
As far as I am concerned, this is very confidential information. : (
The law requires them to interfere with Federal elections. Custom requires the democrats to steal every vote they can.
I wonder some times how any sane person can think that any elections today are any more honest than a faro wheel in the old West.
Sounds like he just threatened the Presidents life.
National voter ID(As much as I would hate that) and an end to early voting.
I like that
Well said. I remember articles from a few (couple??) years ago about the primary with Daniel and Cochran.
Dirty rotten politics there.
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