The U.S. Department of Justice dropped its lawsuit against Oklahoma after state election officials agreed to hand over voter data on the condition that citizen privacy is protected.
Oklahoma was among five states sued in February by the DOJ. The department has sued dozens of states as it seeks to obtain more detailed voter registration data than is typically available to the public because of the confidential information it contains.
When asked earlier this year to share the data, State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax declined to provide the entire record, offering only partially redacted information and sharing other methods for ensuring election security. He wrote in a letter that he had been advised that his agency could not legally share driver's license numbers or Social Security data.
However, the new settlement gives the federal government access to that information. According to the settlement agreement, federal officials must agree not to use any information outside the scope of their election integrity review and must also comply with federal privacy laws, specifically the Privacy Act of 1974.
The privacy protection guarantees appear to help deal with that issue. Ziriax said in a statement he was pleased with the resolution.
"From the beginning, I have been willing to cooperate with the DOJ," he said. "Oklahoma has long been a national leader for ensuring election integrity and promoting facts about elections — and this will continue to be so."
AG Drummond negotiated with DOJ
The settlement was negotiated by the DOJ with Attorney General Gentner Drummond's office.
"In Oklahoma, we are committed to the integrity of our elections," Drummond said in a press release. "The State of Oklahoma will cooperate with efforts to eliminate voter fraud and safeguard electoral processes in accordance with the law. We are committed to both election integrity and the protection of personal information."
Representatives from Drummond's office did not respond to a request for comment on how the data sharing will comply with federal law. When the lawsuit was first announced, Drummond issued a press release stating that the state would comply with any "lawful federal requests."
Earlier this week, several parties attempted to intervene in the original lawsuit to stop the sharing of the data. Those include the League of Women Voters of Oklahoma and United Latin American Citizens, represented by the ACLU of Oklahoma.
A spokesperson for the ACLU did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
