DOJ Wants NE Voter Info

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Contentious discussion over the Department of Justice's request for Nebraska's
voter information. And Nebraska is not the only state but
here it's important to us, of course, and a lot
of people are upset about this. In fact, Common Cause
has filed a lawsuit to block giving the DOJ this

(00:22):
voter information. We're joined for a few minutes this morning
by Nebraska's Secretary of State Robert Evnant.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Bob good morning, Good morning, Gary. Good to be with you.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
You bet good to have you back here. You referred
this request or questions about it, to Mike Kilger, as
our Secretary of State, and he said he believes the
DOJ request is in bounds. They are requesting I guess
the complete voter rolls. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yes? My childrens by the way, as our attorney here, yes,
to keep the scorecards. And I did. When we receive
this letter from the United States Department of Justice, from
the head of their Civil Rights Division. I provided a
letter to the Attorney General and I said, look, would
you review this and advise us. He's the state's lawyer

(01:15):
and that's his job. And he came back and told
us that it was in bounds. This request was a
proper request. The Department of Justice has asked for our
voter registration list. This is something that is provided by statute,
that is provided to campaigns, has provided to political parties,

(01:38):
it's provided to issue advocates, and you can get a
copy of the voter registration role for non commercial purposes.
This is something that's provided by statute. In addition to that,
the Department of Justice asked for some personal information that

(01:59):
we don't normal provide, and that personal information was your
exact data birth. The voter registration role that we provide
others has your year of birth, and they asked for
the exact date of birth, driver's license numbers, and last
for the Social Security numbers. They asked this to review
list maintenance practices under two federal laws. There are a

(02:22):
couple of federal laws that affect our states perform list
maintenance practices. These are practices that keep our voter registration
roles accurate. And I'm fine with that because we follow
those laws. Our list maintenance practices under those laws is

(02:44):
complete and proper, so I don't have any problem with that.
In fact, I'm glad that they're looking at other states
because while I'm very confident about Nebraska. Questions have been
raised about some other states. So I don't have any
problem with the fact that they're looking into list maintenance
practices under under these two federal laws.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, but didn't you say you're not going to release
personal information? Or did I read that wrong?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Now, what I said is that I'm going to get
advice from the Attorney General who said that the request
is inbounds. I would say to you, I have been
in touch with a Department of Justice. People have expressed
concerns about some of this personal information being provided, and
I've been in touch with a Department of Justice to
get a clarification from them and to get to discuss

(03:34):
with them how this information is going to be used
and how it's going to be protected. All of that
now has been stopped by this lawsuit that was filed
by Common Cause and a voter in Omaha. In Common Cause,
you know, this is a group that opposes voter ID.
This is a group that advocates for all mail and
elections statewide in Nebraska. And what I read that to

(03:57):
mean is no more voting at the polls. This is
a group that opposes the President's Executive Order on Election
Integrity that he issued earlier this year that I considered
to be a baseline of best practices. They filed a
lawsuit in state court in Lincoln to try to stop
this altogether.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Who would they be suing? Would they be suing you
or the DOJ or who?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, they have sued the Secretary of State and asked
the court to stop the Secretary of State from sending
any information to the US Department of Justice. And of
course the Attorney General is representing the Secretary of State
in that lawsuits.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, okay, so I guess I'm never thrilled when big
brother wants personal information on citizens, although we live in
a time where there basically is no privacy. I mean,
the federal government.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Had you know, Gary, they're asking for the last one.
Your social Security number? Is the government that.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Issued Yeah, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
You know, so the government has your And this is
the reason why this is all front and center now
is because over the last four plus years prior to
this administration, ten or fifteen million people walked across the
border of the United States without the legal right to
do so. And you have to wonder, you have to

(05:27):
wonder have any of those people wound up on voter registration.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yes, and you know they have maybe not here, but.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
There's there's a there's a whole other there's a whole
other option under the presence executive order to for states
to voluntarily run checks that were not available before. And
we're preparing to do that, and that's worth another ten
minute segment on your show at some point to talk
about that.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Let's do that, Robert, thank you for the time this morning.
Always appreciate it. Uh So, we await you bet, we
await the outcome of that lawsuit with Common Cause suing
and asked the court to stop the Secretary of State
from providing this info of the DJ