Idaho to handle voter info request using public record law

BOISE – Idaho officials will treat a request for voter records from President Donald Trump’s commission investigating alleged voter fraud as a public records request, Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney announced Monday afternoon.

Denney said he doesn’t intend to respond to the commission’s request for the state’s voter rolls until July 14. He will use that time to work with Gov. Butch Otter and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to develop the “appropriate and legally required response.” All three men are Republicans, and Idaho is considered one of the most conservative states in the nation.

“While a request for voter information itself is not atypical, and while specific parts of the state voter roll are in fact public, this particular request was of a unique enough nature that it bears some additional review,” Denney said in a prepared statement.

Trump, a Republican, won the electoral college, but he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. He has alleged, entirely without evidence, that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally. Some states have refused to comply with the commission’s request, saying it invades privacy and is based on false claims of fraud. Other states have agreed to provide only publicly available information.

The request from the commission sought voter names, addresses, gender, age, telephone numbers, party affiliations and which elections each voter participated in, as well as dates of birth, the last four numbers of each voter’s social security number, felony convictions and other identifying information.

Denney says he’s interpreting the request from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity as a public record request, and so Idaho’s Public Records Law – included in the “Transparent and Ethical Government” section of state code – will guide his response.

In Idaho, the state’s voter registration system is public, including voters’ names, addresses and voting history. However, information about driver’s license numbers, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and date of births are not releasable under the state’s public records law even though that data is collected on registration forms. Idaho’s voter registration system doesn’t track information about felony convictions or whether voters are registered in other states.