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New Hampshire Debates Turning Over Public Voter Data to Trump Election Commission

Gov. Chris Sununu and Secretary of State Bill Gardner are on board to turn over publicly available New Hampshire voter data to President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission. Before that happens though, the matter is under review by the state Attorney General and a petition is circulating the state asking the N.H. House to call a special session to deny the commission’s request.

In a request, Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity Vice Chairman and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is asking states to turn over “publicly available voter roll data” including full names, addresses, birth dates, party affiliation, voter history, any felony convictions, and the last four digits of voters’ social security numbers.

Gardner, who also sits on President Donald Trump’s voter integrity commission, says he plans to share the Granite State’s information next week if the Attorney General’s office signs off that it’s legal. Gardner said he views the request as a way of crosschecking voters nationwide to ensure that people aren’t voting twice in future elections. His involvement in the commission has been widely criticized by Democrats and advocacy groups who call the commission’s mission a “sham.”

Sununu made it clear that the only information New Hampshire would provide is a voters’ name, address, party affiliation, and voting history, including whether a person voted in a general election and which party’s ballot a voter took during a primary election.

That information is already available to political parties and committees for a price and it should be shared with the commission, Sununu said. The statewide voter checklist can also be viewed by members of the public online, except they can’t “print, duplicate, transmit, or alter the data.” It has yet to be determined if the state will charge the federal government for access to the voter information. Private data — like birthdays and social security numbers — would not be provided by the state because it’s not publicly accessible, he said.

“I think every state should comply. Any state not complying is simply playing politics at this point,” Sununu told MSNBC on Friday. “You have to have a system that people can trust, that people can believe in. And this is simply a review to make sure that where our system is today and where it’s going tomorrow has that integrity.”

As of Wednesday, 44 states have denied the commission’s request for access to their voter information. The White House claims 20 states have agreed to provide the publicly available information and 16 other states are reviewing which information can be released under state laws.

“At present, only 14 states and the District of Columbia have refused the Commission’s request for publicly available voter information,” Kobach said in a statement. “Despite media distortions and obstruction by a handful of state politicians, this bipartisan commission on election integrity will continue its work to gather the facts through public records requests to ensure the integrity of each American’s vote because the public has a right to know.”

Democrats and some legal experts are blasting the request, questioning its legality and saying the data could be used to suppress voters and gerrymander in the future.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said under state law it would be illegal for Gardner to provide private voter information. Gardner and Sununu have indicated they would not provide that information as requested by the commission.

“It is disappointing that Gov. Sununu has chosen the Trump administration’s unwarranted request over the privacy of Granite Staters,” Buckley said in a statement. “He is once again falling in line behind President Trump and pledging to hand over our highly personal information to a federal government commission created at best to soothe the president’s ego, and at worst, undermine the integrity of our elections and disenfranchise millions of voters.”

Paul Twomey, a former House legal counsel and attorney specializing in voting issues, sent a letter to top state officials in the attorney general’s office asking them to “immediately intervene to halt any transmission of voter file information to any entities associated with the federal government by the Secretary of State or his office.”

Twomey, who has also served as a lawyer for several Democratic campaigns, argued that Gardner shouldn’t be the one to determine if the state’s information is released since he was involved in the commission’s request for the information as a sitting member of the commission.

“Gardner thus is the requester and should not take part in any decisions about release of this information,” Twomey wrote. “I urge you to immediately review the applicable statutes and take action to safeguard the privacy of the state’s voters.”

Democratic Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky sent his own letter on Monday also saying the state is not required to turn over any information to the commission.

“The Commission has not issued an order or a duly authorized subpoena. Your actions most likely violate New Hampshire law,” he wrote. ““The letter requesting New Hampshire’s voter information makes clear that all records provided to the Commission will be made public. Once the Commission makes our voter information public, it will be subject to commercial exploitation.”

Even former New Hampshire Republican Party Chair Fergus Cullen opposes sharing data with the commission.

An online petition on Change.org was created on Monday that is requesting the N.H. House call a special session to discuss the commission’s voter information request.

“Tell the Governor and Secretary of State to deny this frivolous and intrusive request that is unacceptable and a troubling violation of the state’s laws governing public disclosure of voter records,” the petition states.

As of Wednesday, the petition had more than 500 signatures, including several from people who live outside New Hampshire.

Several Democratic state lawmakers have indicated they support calling a special session, but House Majority Leader Dick Hinch called their petition “political grandstanding.”

“I have a high level of respect for Secretary of State Bill Gardner and it’s unfortunate that Representative Shurtleff and others in the Democratic Party have chosen to suggest he would divulge information that is not public,” he said. “If Democrats had a genuine concern about the availability of the data, they had decades to change the law. By petitioning for a special session they demonstrate their political motives and their disregard for the usual and customary legislative process.”

Gardner is looking at a law passed last year that allows New Hampshire to share information from its voter registration database with the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program.

Under state law, “the secretary of state may enter into an agreement to share voter information or data from the statewide centralized voter registration database for the purpose of comparing duplicate voter information with other states or groups of states.”

The law also stipulates that the state “shall only provide information that is necessary for matching duplicate voter information with other states and shall take precautions to make sure that information in the database is secure.”

The commission has yet to have its first meeting, but Gardner is expected to travel to the first gathering that is scheduled for July 19.

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Andru Volinsky Becomes Strong Critic of Gov. Sununu’s Agenda

A Democratic member of the state’s highest council is quickly becoming one of the fiercest critics of Gov. Chris Sununu’s agenda. Andru Volinsky, one of the two Democrats sitting on the five-member Executive Council, has been the most vocal about the differences in ideology between him and the governor, especially when it comes to education.

Volinsky, D-Concord, did not support Frank Edelblut’s nomination to be the next state education commissioner. During Edelblut’s nomination hearing in January, Volinsky pushed back on his background in public education and religious views.

The most tense exchange between the two men was over the fact that Edelblut sat on the board of Patrick Henry College, a private Christian liberal arts school in Virginia, and the the school had an “oath of faith” that all of its “agents” needed to sign, which included a belief in creationism over evolution.

“You will be the chief educator to whom all of the science teachers in our state will report. Do you subscribe to this such that the science teachers need to worry about whether you will require creationism to be taught alongside evolution?” Volinsky asked.

He treated his questioning of Edelblut like a court-room cross-examination, using poster board and an easel to showcase his points.

His long questioning at one point drew a rebuke from two of his Republican colleagues on the council, David Wheeler and Russell Prescott, who chastised him for taking too long and accused him of grandstanding. Edelblut, who previously made an unsuccessful bid to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2016, was ultimately confirmed on a 3-2 vote that fell on party lines.

Volinsky also recently criticized Edelblut for not disclosing a $1,000 donation he made to the Croydon School Board’s legal defense fund in a school choice lawsuit brought on by the N.H. Department of Education, which he now has influence over as state education commissioner.

The state education department sued to block the town of Croydon’s practice of using public funds to pay private school tuition for some of its children. The dispute helped spur legislation, known as the “Croydon bill,” that would make the tuition practice explicitly legal.

Edelblut’s disclosure came after the Valley News reported that Croydon rejected a request to reveal the names of the donors to the $23,000 fund and Edelblut, for two weeks, declined to answer questions about his role.

Volinsky emailed Edelblut earlier this month to ask that he make public whether he had contributed to Croydon and to explain why he had not disclosed the donation previously.

“I contributed $1,000 to the Croydon legal defense fund,” Edelblut said in a reply email. “The contribution was made anonymously. I prefer the focus to stay on the cause and not draw attention to myself.”

Volinsky said he doesn’t think Edelblut’s contribution was a crime, but he should be more transparent about any potential conflict of interests.

“I was troubled by the fact that Mr. Edelblut did not respond to this request for disclosure and then reading his response, I’m equally concerned because he said the reason for anonymity was that he did not want to interfere with the cause,” Volinsky told NH1 News. “Think about it. He was running for governor. And the private schools [were] part of his platform. So he was already in the middle of this, number one. And number two, he’s describing the diversion of public funds to private schools as a cause for him. That is contrary to his testimony that he was merely an implementer, and it doesn’t speak well for him being candid during his confirmation process.”

He also said that he was concerned the new commissioner was seeking to further his own “agenda” rather than implement policy created by others. He tweeted, “Ed [Commissioner] secretly helped fund Croydon to support his ’cause’ — diverting public funds to pay for private schools. #edelblutagenda #nhpolitics”

It’s not surprising to see Volinsky come strongly out against Sununu’s education agenda. Volinsky is a lawyer who litigated landmark state education cases before the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and he ran for his seat on the Executive Council with the campaign promise to protect public school funding. Sununu has long been an advocate for school choice.

Volinsky’s comments about the “Edelblut agenda” have made waves in the conservative Twitter community, that sought to take his own words and discuss how the “Volinsky agenda” is bad for New Hampshire.

Volinsky then responded, reclaiming the term as his own and saying what he supports in his own education agenda.

Liberals and Democrats online rallied behind Volinsky’s agenda, posting why they agree and support him.

Volinsky even gave a speech about his agenda at to the New Hampshire State Teachers Association on March 17.

“Every morning with coffee I read my emails and my twitter feeds come through. This morning, some troll tweeted that Edelblut did nothing wrong and my complaints were only part of the #VolinskyAgenda,” he said. “I don’t respond to these things, but thought, the #VolinskyAgenda, huh? So, yea, I have an agenda. The #VolinskyAgenda is good schools, climate change, universal access to healthcare and reducing income inequality. That’s my damned agenda.”

Although it’s only been nearly four months since Sununu’s inauguration, many people are behind Volinsky’s agenda, which could possibly set him up for support for a gubernatorial bid in 2018 if he wanted to run.

It’s not often that Executive Councilors run for the corner office. The five-member regulatory board is charged with overseeing the administrative functions of the state government. The Executive Council advises the governor and provides the check for state contracts. The council also has veto power over pardons and state agency nominations by the governor.

For the first time in recent memory, the 2016 gubernatorial nominees were both Executive Councilors. Sununu was from Newfields in District 3 and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Colin Van Ostern of Concord sat in the District 2 seat.

With the council getting more public attention, it’s possible that Granite Staters could see more Executive Councilors running for higher office, and Volinsky could potentially be the next candidate.

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