Fears about the decision to share Missourians’ personal information with the federal government are misplaced, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said after a nationwide outcry about a data request from a presidential commission.
Ashcroft, a Republican, defended his decision to acquiesce to requests for information from President Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission.
“In this era of big data and government overreach, I understand concerns, Ashcroft said. “But the outrage over this request is based on a misunderstanding of the facts.”
The commission, headed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach — a proponent of stricter voting and immigration laws who also is running for governor — asked secretaries of state across the country to provide publicly available voter information, including names, addresses, birthdays, partial Social Security numbers and voting history.
Ashcroft emphasized that this request was just for publicly available information and said his predecessors have fulfilled similar asks hundreds of times. Missouri’s Sunshine Law requires his office to comply with requests for public records.
“My willingness to comply with the request is not a political or personal choice,” Ashcroft said. “It’s a decision based on the laws governing my office and the information we have. No voter preferences, political affiliations or confidential information will be provided.”
Officials representing nearly all of the U.S. said they will not comply with the request, according to the Washington Post.
Kobach, a Republican, previously told the Kansas City Star he advised Trump to investigate voter fraud.
Trump has claimed, without evidence, that millions of votes were illegally cast in 2016.