August 2, 2017
ALBANY, NY – From Governor Cuomo’s press office:
The President’s Election Commission initially requested voter information, including criminal history and Social Security numbers, from the Cuomo Administration through the Secretary of State, which was rejected. They then requested the information from the State Board of Elections, which was also rejected.
The Commission then submitted a revised request to the Board of Elections under the Freedom of Information Law only for publicly available information – without any Social Security numbers, criminal history, or other sensitive personal data. Such requests are often made by any member of the public and produced several times a day to multiple requestors ranging from candidates to journalists to interested members of the public. That general information request is being granted by the Board of Elections, but nothing further.
Governor Cuomo released the following statement:
“To be clear, the original letter from the President’s Election Commission requested information that the Commission is not legally entitled to obtain. Accordingly, our administration rejected that request because it not only violated privacy rights – but also state law. Our position remains unchanged and we will continue to deny requests for sensitive personal data about New York residents, which is protected under the law. We will never provide private voter information to anyone, especially a politically-motivated organization seeking to perpetuate the myth of voter fraud.”
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