Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity renews request for publicly available voter data

DENVER, July 27, 2017 – Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams responded to the first request for input and information from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity on July 14, 2017 with a detailed letter which outlined many of Colorado’s processes and answered the questions posed. Williams notified the Commission that certain information, including date of birth and social security numbers, is confidential under Colorado law and would not be produced.

Williams requested two changes in the Commission’s procedures. First, Williams told the Commission that even publicly available data would only be transmitted "in a secure manner." Second, Williams requested that "all data" received by the Commission "should be secured."

On July 26, 2017, Colorado received a renewed request for publicly available information from the Commission but with several changes, including adopting both of Williams’ initial recommendations.

"The Commission’s adoption of our requested changes with respect to securing the publicly available data represents a significant improvement over the procedures proposed initially," noted Williams.

With respect to the renewed request, the Secretary of State’s office will continue to follow the requirements of Colorado law. Confidential information will not be produced. Information that Colorado law makes publicly available will be produced only in a secure method.

"As with any request we receive for public information, we must comply with Colorado law." Williams said.

Williams again stated that "It’s my hope that citizens who withdrew their registration will re-register, particularly once they realize that no confidential information will be provided and that the parties and presidential candidates already have the same publicly available information from the 2016 election cycle." Williams further noted that his office has no evidence to indicate that the voters who withdrew did so because they were not eligible.

"Clearly we wouldn’t be asking them to re-register if we didn’t believe they were eligible," said Williams.