That overall tally means that 17 out of the 28 states that were in Crosscheck as of early 2017 have backed away, at least for now. That list of states, that, under a legal memo, agree to share some of their voter data for analytics overseen by the Kansas Secretary of State, comes from a Supreme Court legal brief filed by ex-Bush administration officials known for overly policing the process. They supported a new purge process in Ohio.
But there’s more going on than a mass exodus or distancing from Crosscheck, as Illinois’ reference to “security issues” alludes. Last fall, Indivisible Chicago, a Democratic activist group, posted documents online showing Crosscheck security lapses: emails with logins and passwords; statements that it did not change passwords; and observing that it didn’t encrypt voter data. Since then, some of the attorneys defending Crosscheck in court have acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security sees Crosscheck as a cyber-security risk. That development led more states to suspend its interactions with it.