ATLANTA — A Georgia Senate panel approved a resolution Thursday calling on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to turn over the state’s unredacted voter list to the U.S. Department of Justice — including voters’ Social Security and driver’s license numbers.
The Senate Ethics Committee voted along party lines, with Republicans in support and Democrats opposed, to advance the resolution to a vote by the full Senate.
The resolution doesn’t carry the force of law, but it’s a symbolic effort to support the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to collect voters’ data — and to take aim at Raffensperger, a fellow Republican who is running for governor against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr.
Democrats objected to Senate Resolution 563, saying it could result in identity theft if the federal government shares voters’ private information with outside organizations in an effort to find noncitizens or double-voters.
“I’m deeply concerned that we are going to spend taxpayer dollars, a lot of them, millions of dollars, if we were to send this data information over and then also compromise the privacy data of our Georgia citizens,” said state Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain.
Republicans on the committee criticized Raffensperger for failing to show up at the hearing and for only providing a public version of Georgia’s voter list to the DOJ.
Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, said Raffensperger is the one wasting taxpayer money by fighting with the federal government.
The DOJ recently sued Georgia for the full voter list, and a hearing is scheduled in federal court later this month.
“While we like to talk about this information being the most hyper-sensitive information in the world, it’s really not, which is why most credit card companies and others use different information now to prevent ID theft,” Robertson said.
Raffensperger’s office has said in court documents that state law prevents disclosure of voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, full birth dates and email addresses.
Besides Georgia, the DOJ has sued several Democrat-led states that have refused to comply with the request for voter records. Republican-run states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee have agreed to provide full voter registration lists.