{"id":213494,"date":"2026-02-14T13:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T18:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/14\/voting-rights-groups-virginia-voters-file-motion-to-protect-data-privacy\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T14:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T19:20:09","slug":"voting-rights-groups-virginia-voters-file-motion-to-protect-data-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/14\/voting-rights-groups-virginia-voters-file-motion-to-protect-data-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting Rights Groups, Virginia Voters File Motion to Protect Data Privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Voting Rights Groups, Virginia Voters File Motion to Protect Data Privacy<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/virginia\/press\/voting-rights-groups-virginia-voters-file-motion-to-protect-data-privacy\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-14 13:29:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.commoncause.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Common Cause, the ACLU National Voting Rights Project, and a Virginia voter filed a motion to intervene in\u00a0<\/span>United States of America v. Beals<\/span>\u00a0to prevent the Department of Justice (DOJ) from obtaining Virginia voters\u2019 personal data from the nonpublic voter file.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In July, the DOJ asked Virginia to turn over voters\u2019 full names, dates of birth, addresses, driver\u2019s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers \u2014\u00a0highly sensitive\u00a0data that is protected under state and federal law. The state did not turn over the unredacted data.\u00a0The DOJ responded by filing a lawsuit against the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections, Susan Beals, in January in an attempt to obtain this information.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The advocates and voters argue DOJ\u2019s request threatens voter privacy and enables voter disenfranchisement. They are represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Voters joining the case include a naturalized citizen,\u00a0<\/span>Katie Ellena<\/span>, who has an interest in this case because their background places them at heightened risk of DOJ targeting, a threat that extends to countless other\u00a0Virginia\u00a0voters.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cVirginia\u2019s privacy laws are in place for a reason\u2014to protect people and their data,\u201d said\u00a0<\/span>Suzanne Almeida, Common Cause Vice President of States.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cHanding personal data over to the federal government would put voters at risk and could result in eligible voters being denied their right to\u00a0participate\u00a0in a major election year. Common Cause is fighting to protect the rights of Virginia voters and to prevent the potential misuse of their data.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFederal overreach of this kind threatens voters\u2019 privacy and their fundamental right to participate in our democracy,\u201d said\u00a0<\/span>Ari\u00a0Savitzky, senior staff attorney with the ACLU\u2019s Voting Rights Project<\/span>. \u201cThe Department of Justice is using the civil rights statutes as\u00a0pretext\u00a0to try to hoover up private voter data and use it for…<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voting Rights Groups, Virginia Voters File Motion to Protect Data Privacy https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/virginia\/press\/voting-rights-groups-virginia-voters-file-motion-to-protect-data-privacy\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-14…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/virginia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/RightsRestoration_2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213494"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213496,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213494\/revisions\/213496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}