Sound Politics: Birthday Suit

January 27, 2005

Birthday Suit

I followed the example of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and submitted a formal public disclosure request to the Secretary of State's office asking for a copy of the state voter registration file that includes voter birthdates. (The Seattle Times received this file earlier this month, but now the Secretary of State is trying to claw back the data and deny all further requests for it).

Election officials have made it clear that they won't take responsiblity for their failure to prevent illegal voting and that they view it as the electorate's responsibility to safeguard the integrity of the voting process. Fair enough. But then it's absolutely essential that voter birthdates be made available to the public so that the electorate can do a proper job of inspecting the voter lists and detect illegal voting. I hope the Secretary of State will do the right thing and release this vital public information without delay.

In the meantime, the Seattle Times could also do the public service of publishing the birthday file to which they currently have exclusive access.

UPDATE: A reader comments:

Can I copy the content of your letter and send it to SoS too! I am "Jane Public" and have the same rights to Public Info as the next person. Would be interesting to see if they would respond.

You bet! The more the merrier. Hopefully that would demonstrate to the SoS that there's sufficient public interest in this data to inspire him to release it voluntarily. Otherwise, we'd have the possibility of a class action suit to get the data released.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 27, 2005 02:04 PM | Email This

Comments

1. If the birth date files are public records then they certainly should be released immediately. As is sometimes the case one could reasonably be expected to defay the cost of reproduction but the records should nevertheless be released. This sound a lot like a foot dragging cover up to me

Posted by: R Platt on January 27, 2005 02:46 PM

2. Good luck, voter identity seems to be a 4 letter word/phrase to the majority of democrats.

Be careful, you might be labled a hater for trying to disenfranchise a protected class, aka "The Make Believe Voter"

Posted by: Todd on January 27, 2005 02:49 PM

3. Go get 'em Stefan. These records ARE public information and you have just as much right to them as the Times, P-I or anyone else out there. I just don't get what they have to "hide" in NOT being very FREE with the release of very PUBLIC information...

Posted by: SnoCo Voter on January 27, 2005 02:53 PM

4. Stefan !! Can I copy the content of your letter and send it to SoS too! I am "Jane Public" and have the same rights to Public Info as the next person. Would be interesting to see if they would respond.

Kudo's on a great job keeping us informed.

Posted by: Chris on January 27, 2005 03:29 PM

5. You need to do this for the upcoming February elections also. For _each_ of the 'last day to register by mail' date, 'last day to register in person' date, and the day of the election.

The shenanigans about changing the dates on which voters actually registered in the database is _the_ method by which new ballots can 'appear' and be added (since they'll pass the 'well, is he registered?' check.)

If I remember correctly, there's a fine for every mistake on a FOIA request - so when they turn around and add people "mistakenly" left off the list....

Posted by: Al on January 27, 2005 03:41 PM