New York’s efforts to shield voter information from President Trump’s quixotic investigation into voter fraud in the presidential election fell flat Wednesday, with Gov. Andrew Cuomo acknowledging the state would provide requested public information.
Previously, when the Trump administration requested private voter information, Gov. Cuomo repeatedly resisted, denying two demands for criminal histories and the Social Security numbers of voters.
However, the governor’s office announced yesterday that a FOIL request was being processed to release public information to Trump’s Election Commission, which has continuously attempted to gain sensitive data on those casting their ballots.
“To be clear, the original letter from the president’s Election Commission requested information that the Commission is not legally entitled to obtain,” Cuomo said in a statement released Wednesday. “Accordingly, our administration rejected that request because it not only violated privacy rights – but also state law.”
The Commission initially sent its request to the Cuomo administration and received a denial, to which the response was yet another request through the State Board of Elections, which was also denied. Realizing it wouldn’t be granted access to the data it originally wanted, the Commission changed its request to pertain only to already public information, which is available through the FOIL to any individual who asks.
“Our position remains unchanged, and we will continue to deny requests for sensitive personal data about New York residents, which is protected under the law,” the governor said. “We will never provide private voter information to anyone, especially a politically motivated organization seeking to perpetuate the myth of voter fraud.”
