Montana sec. of State’s data release was unconstitutional
Given the distractions of the holiday season, our focus on our families and our trades, and our general disinterest in civics, there’s a good chance you missed the news that Montana’s Secretary of State has turned over your personal data to the federal Justice Department and its private contractors. That’s right. Your voting record, including full name, date of birth, residential address, driver’s license number or Social Security number are now in the hands of a federal agency that has nothing to do with tax collection, Social Security administration, or importantly, elections.
According to Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, her office handed over Montanans’ voter data in order to “facilitate a review for noncitizens and dead voters” by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security.
Forgetting for a moment that this is a breach of personal privacy, it is indisputably unconstitutional. According to the U.S. Constitution, the federal executive branch is explicitly prohibited from influencing state elections. It’s an important check and balance of federalism designed precisely to prevent a presidential administration from meddling in the mechanics of elections, which are clearly assigned exclusively to state governments.
Jacobsen should know this. After all, we elected her to oversee Montana’s fair and impartial elections. More critically, Montana’s voters should know this, that Jacobsen cheerfully complied with an unconstitutional request, according to a post from the Secretary of State’s own website.
Just as worrisome to those of us who value personal privacy, Montanans’ personal data will now be available to private firms that can use A.I. tools to tease out our voting patterns, behaviors, and incomes. We’ve seen from the DOGE initiatives conducted by Elon Musk’s crews a year ago that Trump administration is keen to glean and share personal information of Americans across the government. We can expect that details of our income, health, the charities we support, and the property we own are now shared across every federal agency. Jacobsen’s action now adds our voting patterns to that trove of personal information the federal government collects and keeps.
I don’t want to single out Jacobsen for this attention. At least a dozen states, nearly all led by Republican governors or secretaries of state, turned over sensitive voter data to the Justice Department. That includes Wyoming, whose Republican governor says it’s an inappropriate intrusion of the federal government into what’s clearly a state’s duty and right.
Wyoming’s Gov. Mark Gordon is right. Jacobsen’s action is illegal. But it’s especially disturbing that it’s received so little attention and indignation from Montana’s voters, or from our elected officials. But maybe that’s the idea, to erode public support in elections in order to keep those that would manipulate them firmly in power.
- Andrew McKean
