Trump’s Voter Fraud Panel chairman just accidentally exposed 945 social security numbers

The dismantling of the bogus voter fraud commission that President Trump initially set up to prove that he actually won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election hasn’t stopped the revelations of bad news associated with the entire ill-fated venture.

First, the news broke today about the commission requesting that Texas flag all of the Hispanic sounding names in their voter rolls for possible culling. Later in the day, it was revealed that 945 social security numbers belonging to voters in Kansas were made accidentally public through a program initiated by the head of Trump’s voter fraud commission, Kris Kobach, when he was Kansas Secretary of State.

As reported on Think Progress, the privacy breaches were related to the Interstate Crosscheck Program which compares voter registration databases across state lines to check for duplicate registrations. Just a few weeks ago, Kobach testified in front of the Kansas legislature and swore that the security of the program was flawless.

“We have never had any security breach, ever, since the Crosscheck program has existed.” said Kobach.

Unfortunately for Kobach, the program had just sent the social security numbers of 945 people to voting officials in Florida via an unsecured email, which Florida then forwarded to an individual seeking information on the state’s participation in the program via a freedom of information public records request. Florida was then forced to provide free credit checks to all 945 individuals whose personal information was publically revealed.

Anita Parsa, the Kansas woman who made the request for data on the program, initially was asked for the information because she was concerned about the voter suppression implications of the program. Now. however, she is equally concerned with privacy and data security.

“I was shocked by what I received. It’s part of an overall careless approach that I feel like the Kansas secretary of state’s office has used. Their protocol and their internal process for handling this puts people at risk,” Parsa said.

“When you are dealing with the private data of a hundred million people, it needs to be at a professional level where the people in charge are experts at data security and make it a huge priority,” she said. “In Kansas, we don’t have the money and we don’t have the expertise to be the ones in charge with this kind of data.”

Given the problems that Kobach’s homegrown Kansas voter investigations have had, with absolutely no evidence of the supposedly massive voter fraud that The President and his Republican cronies have claimed, America is fortunate that the national voter fraud commission has been discredited and disbanded before even more dire consequences could take place.

Vinnie Longobardo

is the Managing Editor of Washington Press and a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile, & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.