Left-wing orgs get citizens' data when registering to vote, results in NC election board complaint

Progressive nonprofit organizations are obtaining personal information about residents of various states when they use the groups’ link to register to vote online, which has resulted in a complaint filed against them to the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE).

In an alleged data mining operation, three left-wing nonprofits are working together to register voters by directing them to a website of one of the groups and obtaining personal information. This has led to a complaint filed against the groups by an election integrity organization in North Carolina.

On Thursday, the Election Integrity Network (EIN) highlighted mailings sent by the Voter Participation Center (VPC), the Center for Voter Information (CVI), and Rock the Vote to residents in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

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Nonprofit voter registration form

Election Integrity Network

The mailings include QR codes that, when scanned, take people to VPC’s website, where it requires users to provide their email address and zip code. After filling out the information, another page appears that requests the person’s name, birthdate, address, and other data.

According to a screenshot of VPC's website after the QR code is scanned, below the email address and zip code fields, it reads, "By continuing, you accept Rock the Vote’s Privacy Policy and agree to receive occasional election reminder emails form Rock the Vote. You can opt out from emails at any time."

Ned Jones, director of the Citizen Election Research Center (CERC), a project of EIN, said in a statement Thursday regarding the mailings, “If you scan the QR Code, it doesn’t lead directly to your state’s registration authority. Instead, it is taking recipients to a data collection center that gathers email and other PII.”

He later noted, “State election officials, whose job it is to protect the privacy of voters, must block any attempt by a third-party organization to mine the private information of their citizens — particularly if they are doing it under the guise of registering voters.”

Following EIN’s report, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) filed a complaint on Monday with NCSBE over the mailings, alleging that the three nonprofits are “unlawfully collecting and retaining personally identifiable information (‘PII’) from voter registration applications.”

“North Carolina rightly protects its citizens from unscrupulous organizations harvesting personal information under the guise of helping people register to vote,” RITE President Derek Lyons said in a statement Monday. “But several notorious leftwing operations appear to be doing just that. These organizations are well-known for swamping election administrators with faulty paperwork and phone calls from citizens confused by their meddling.

"And now, they appear to be retaining North Carolinians’ personal information, in violation of state law," Lyons added. "The board of elections must investigate and, if necessary, put a stop to this outrageous betrayal of voter trust. Retaining personally identifiable information demonstrates that groups like this may be more interested in their own agendas than in merely registering voters."

According to InfluenceWatch, VPC and CVI, which are sister organizations, and Rock the Vote are all left-wing nonprofits that focus on voter outreach.

The complaint noted that “VPC and CVI are well known to election officials nationwide, including in North Carolina. Respondents' activities have ‘buried their offices in unnecessary paperwork and swamped them with calls from voters.’ In recent election cycles VPC and CVI have sent out nearly 600,000 absentee ballot applications with incorrect return addresses in Virginia, ignored North Carolina's own ban on pre-filled absentee voting applications by mailing over 80,000 invalid forms to voters, and VPC's specialty: mailed pre-filled voter registration applications to deceased pets.”

Regarding RITE’s complaint, NCSBE told Just the News on Tuesday, “We have received a complaint from Restoring Trust and Integrity in Elections, and the State Board’s Investigations Division is reviewing it.”

VPC and Rock the Vote didn’t respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

In March, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) warned citizens about pre-filled voter registration mailings from VPC and CVI, noting that they weren’t from his office.

“On two occasions, this Office was contacted on behalf of Voter Participation Center and Center for Voter Information regarding a mailer they planned to send to Alabama citizens,” Allen said in a statement. “In response, I strongly discouraged the group’s plan to mass mail our citizens. This type of targeted, partisan interference by out-of-state, third-party organizations is unnecessary, confusing, and counterproductive.”

Days after Allen’s statement, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) also noted that his office and county circuit clerks had “received numerous calls regarding mailers” from VPC.

“The mailers provide that, according to review, someone at the address may not be registered to vote and encourages completion and submission of a voter registration form,” Watson’s office said. “This is not official correspondence from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office or county Circuit Clerks and is not an indication of a change in anyone’s voter registration status.”

VPC and CVI reacted to the secretaries of state’s statements on the mailings.

In response to Allen’s statement, the nonprofits explained that they “focus largely on underrepresented populations – people of color, young people, and unmarried women.”

“Eligible Alabamians can simply fill out the state voter registration form, sign it, and mail in their voter registration application,” the nonprofits added. “VPC and CVI use the very same voter registration forms used by county election officials and, as stated by Secretary of State Allen, we provide sample letters to state election officials months before the mailers go out. If an individual receives our mailer and is already registered to vote, they can simply discard it.”

The nonprofits gave a similar response regarding Watson’s statement, noting that that month they planned to “send more than 100,000 pieces of mail to citizens of Mississippi making it easy for them to register to vote.”