The Nebraska Supreme Court bench. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit that had tried and failed to stop the state from handing over potentially sensitive parts of its voter data to the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Daniel Gutman, one of the attorneys for voting advocacy group Common Cause and Omaha voter Dawn Essink, asked the high court to reverse a Lancaster County District Court ruling that Common Cause lacked standing to sue because the alleged harm was speculative and not imminent.
The Nebraska Supreme Court agreed to hear the case but had already denied an injunction request that would have prevented Evnen from handing the voter data to the Justice Department. Evnen gave the feds the data in February. This was touched on during oral arguments, as some justices asked if the case mattered anymore since the data had been handed over.
Gutman argued it still matters because, “if the federal government comes knocking,” there isn’t anything the state’s top election official could do to protect voters’ information based on the lower courts’ ruling.
At the lower court level, the district judge had said ruling now would not end the controversy surrounding the DOJ request, including what information the Justice Department would ultimately seek or what Nebraska would provide.
Nebraska Solicitor General Cody Barnett, arguing on behalf of Secretary of State Bob Evnen, the state’s top elections official, asked the court to affirm the lower court decision, saying it was too late to stop the data from being shared.
The plaintiffs, Barnett argued, don’t want the secretary “handing this information to the federal government, because [they] don’t like the federal government … That is the core of her complaint.” Barnett said Essink was asking the court to “wade into a political controversy.”
The Trump administration has asked states for detailed information from state voter rolls, including names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, saying they want the information to ensure accurate voter registrations.
Democratic-led states and some led by Republicans have declined or are pushing back against federal efforts to gather the data, with some citing state laws protecting residents’ data and privacy.
Gutman said that while the federal government creates the “sensitive information” in the voter files, it had not previously centralized a complete federal “profile” of state voters.
“I think that the federal government could find my Social Security number, but they can’t leave the entire profile of my name, date of birth, current address,” Gutman said.
In previous court hearings, Common Cause had argued Nebraska law affords federal officials no special rights to access residents’ private information in parts of the voter file. The state argued that federal agencies still play a valuable role in elections, which are overseen by states.
Nearly every state has been asked to hand over the data. Only 12 states have handed over their complete lists, including Nebraska. Five other states have sent only data already publicly available. Roughly 29 states have been sued by the federal government for the information. Some of the cases have been dismissed, with the DOJ appealing.
This story is provided by States Newsroom, a nonprofit state news network and Blox Digital content partner.
