EPIC Urges Third Circuit to Uphold Pennsylvania’s Protections Against Posting Voter Data Online

Today, EPIC filed an amicus brief in the Third Circuit case Voter Reference Foundation v. Schmidt urging the Court to uphold Pennsylvania’s rule barring people who obtain the state’s voter registration lists from publishing them on the internet. The brief explains that the rule, known as the Internet Sharing Ban, is a common, viewpoint-neutral use and transfer restriction. It protects voters from harassment, intimidation, and coercion without restricting protected speech. The brief also warns that striking down the ban could undermine the many federal and state privacy laws that rely on the same kind of access, use, and transfer limits, including the Privacy Act and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.

Pennsylvania’s voter lists contain sensitive personal information, including voters’ home addresses, party affiliation, and voting history. Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so party affiliation and voting history together can effectively reveal how most people vote. Posting that data online for anyone to scrape would make it easier for employers to pressure workers and for harassers to dox and intimidate voters. It would also force domestic violence survivors to choose between their safety and their right to vote. As EPIC’s brief explains, voter privacy and the First Amendment work together: People who fear their information will be misused may stop registering or participating in politics altogether.

Voter Reference Foundation, which runs a website posting voter data from dozens of states, sued Pennsylvania after state officials required it to take down Pennsylvania voters’ information. VRF argues that the Internet Sharing Ban violates the First Amendment and is preempted by the National Voter Registration Act. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania rejected those claims. It held that the ban is a limit on access to information in the government’s control, not a restriction on speech. VRF has appealed to the Third Circuit.

EPIC regularly advocates for voter privacy, defends privacy protections for government records, and fights federal data abuses, including the government’s recent efforts to amass voters’ personal information. EPIC also regularly files amicus briefs explaining how the First Amendment applies to privacy and data protection laws.