Why No State Should Send Trump Voter Data

Trump's "election fraud" commission recently sent a request to all the states for detailed information on voters, including birthdates and partial Social Security numbers. This is a terrible idea, precisely because this information could be used to commit fraud on a massive scale:

Digital security experts say the commission’s request would centralize and lay bare a valuable cache of information that cyber criminals could use for identity theft scams — or that foreign spies could leverage for disinformation schemes.

“It is beyond stupid,” said Nicholas Weaver, a computer science professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

And don't belittle the idea that the Republicans in charge of this would let hackers get at this information. Because Republicans already have done exactly that:

Detailed information on nearly every U.S. voter — including in some cases their ethnicity, religion and views on political issues — was left exposed online for two weeks by a political consultancy that works for the Republican National Committee and other GOP clients.

The data offered a strikingly complete picture of the voting histories and political leanings of the American electorate laid out in an easily downloadable format, said cybersecurity researcher Chris Vickery. He discovered the unprotected files of 198 million voters in a routine scan of the Internet last week and alerted law enforcement officials.

Trump's commission is itself based on a fraudulent premise: in-person voter fraud is nearly nonexistent. The Republicans want this data so they can cherry-pick a few egregious cases to make the case for even more voter suppression.

And the craziest thing about the commission's request: the secretary of state for Kansas, the man who made the request, won't honor it:

Multiple states plan to buck Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s request for personal information on voters on behalf of a presidential commission.

Kobach said Friday that Kansas, at least for now, also won’t be sharing Social Security information with the commission, on which he serves as vice chairman. The state will share other information about the state’s registered voters, including names and addresses, which are subject to the state’s open records laws.

It looks like most states will refuse to fully comply with the request, though some will furnish information that's already publicly available.

This will royally piss Trump off. Do you think he'll ask the Russians to get the information for him?