Justice Department rejects Orange County proposal to avoid lawsuit over sensitive voter information

The Justice Department Wednesday sued the Orange County Registrar of Voters to access records on the office’s efforts to remove ineligible voters and accusing the county of failing to maintain an accurate voter list.

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page told City News Service, “I can’t comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”

Orange County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairwoman Katrina Foley said the registrar was complying with state law in not turning over some of the information and added the county has been doing its job to eliminate bogus voters.

“We’re complying with state law that says we are required to protect the privacy of what would be considered private information,” Foley told City News Service.

That would include Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, Foley said.

“And in five years we have identified 17 ineligible voters —16 of whom have self-reported,” Foley said.

Robert Soufar, a 76-year-old Canadian citizen who lives in Fullerton, pleaded guilty in November to voting in the 2016 election.

“All of these 17 individuals have been removed from the voter rolls,” Foley said.”There are 1.9 million registered voters and 17 people have been identified as ineligible. Our voting lists are scrubbed constantly for people who have moved or died... This is a good example that the system worked.”

Michael Gates, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, is listed on the complaint. Gates was formerly city attorney for Huntington Beach, which legally squabbled often with the state, including on voter ID.

A former city attorney for Huntington Beach, Michael Gates, now a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, is listed on the DOJ’s complaint against Orange County.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

“It feels political,” Foley said. “I don’t know why the Department of Justice is getting involved when we took care of the situation. We’re actually canceling their registrations and doing our job.”

Supervisor Don Wagner, however, said the county should just hand over whatever the federal officials want.

“I think we ought to give everything over to the Department of Justice like they request and we shouldn’t be trying to hide anything if we have nothing to hide,” Wagner told City News Service.

Any voter who objects can bring their own lawsuit, Wagner said.

“I want the cleanest rolls possible,” Wagner said.

Wagner said it doesn’t matter if state law prevents turning over some personal information.

“If the federal government has a right to it, state law doesn’t trump that,” Wagner said. “I know it is a small number, but that’s part of my problem. I don’t know if it’s the tip of the iceberg or we have the entire iceberg here. And I think the Justice Department wants to figure that out and we should help them figure it out and not stand in the way.”

Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement that “Voting by non- citizens is a federal crime, and states and counties that refuse to disclose all requested voter information are in violation of well-established federal elections laws. Removal of non-citizens from the state’s voter rolls is critical to ensuring that the state’s voter rolls are accurate and that elections in California are conducted without fraudulent voting. The Department of Justice will hold jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal voting laws accountable.”

At issue is the Registrar of Voters redacting information such as drivers license, Social Security and voter ID numbers.

James Steinmann, a supervising deputy counsel for the county, asked Justice Department officials if it was possible to work around the state law regarding disclosure of the private information on Tuesday.

“To avoid a lawsuit, would the USDOJ consider another mechanism to enable the county to provide the USDOJ with this sensitive information,” Steinmann said in an email.

“For example, would the USDOJ be amenable to entering into a confidentiality agreement that would enable us to provide records with assurances that such sensitive personal identifiers will remain confidential and be used for governmental purposes only”

But the Justice Department responded with Wednesday’s lawsuit.