In a court filing on Monday, the commission argued federal law doesn’t require it to perform a privacy risk assessment before collecting voter data, which was a key argument in one of the first lawsuits brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) earlier this month.
After Kris W. Kobach, the panel vice chairman, asked states to turn over names, partial Social Security numbers, birthdays, political party affiliations, military status and other public information last month, EPIC filed suit, hoping to force the commission to complete a Privacy Impact Assessment before gathering the personal data.
EPIC quickly scored a win when the commission suspended its collection of state voter information earlier this month until a judge rules on the matter.
On Monday the commission asked the judge to deny EPIC’s request for a restraining order on the gathering of data, arguing that the pro-privacy group doesn’t have the legal right, or “standing,” to file the lawsuit.