COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - The U.S. Department of Justice is pushing for South Carolina’s voter registration list, including sensitive information like the last four digits of Social Security numbers of driver’s license numbers. It follows similar requests in other states.

Advocates worry that it could erode public trust and risk voter privacy, while voters expressed mixed reactions.

“We don’t want to see normalization of things that will encourage people to believe that our elections are rigged, that their data aren’t safe,” Lynn Teague, vice president for issues and action with the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, said. 

The DOJ says the information is necessary to ensure compliance with federal voting laws and to maintain clean and accurate voter rolls.

The South Carolina Election Commission met on Wednesday to discuss the request and said it will continue talks with federal officials about what information may be shared.

The DOJ initially gave the State Election Commission until August 21 to provide this information.

State election leaders pushed back, asking for more time to consider the request and its legality.

“These laws were passed to protect voter rights, not to challenge legitimate voters, which we’re concerned could happen with the use here,” Teague said.

Sue Berkowitz, with the Appleseed Legal Justice Center, also criticized the request.

“Whether it is federal policing of people or people’s data, it erodes trust, and this should stop,” she said. “America is a democracy, and attacks like these hurt the integrity of our systems and government.”

Teague, who has done extensive work on this issue, said the Constitution gives states the authority to conduct their elections. She fears full compliance with the DOJ’s request could open the door to erroneous assumptions about voter rolls, and ultimately disenfranchisement.

Tiana Tate said this was the first she had heard about the DOJ’s push for this information in South Carolina and several other states. “I don’t know if I like the idea of that information being released without my personal approval,” she said.

Richard Lakpassa, who recently moved to the Palmetto State from Texas, said he takes voting “very seriously.”

“So whatever can bring integrity to the voting process is not a problem for me, nor for my wife,” he said. “So to the extent of documenting and making sure that people are duly registered to vote, I don’t think there is an issue for that. I just don’t like the invasiveness of the process.”

In a statement, the DOJ said it “has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”

The agency cited the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 as its authority for requesting voter data from South Carolina and other states.

The federal government added that clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are vital for free and fair elections.

“It’s not a perfect system, but it’s really on the whole well-maintained,” Teague said. “The SEC in South Carolina has generally tried to be, I think, a fair and objective custodian of the data that they have.”

Other states have responded to DOJ demands by providing only partial data, with redactions of some of the more sensitive information.

Teague said she appreciates the State Election Commission’s thoughtful and cautious consideration of the request.

The State Election Commission has not said exactly what data it will provide by the September deadline.

However, election officials and voting rights advocacy groups expressed concern with the expansive nature of the request.

Watch the full interview at the link above.