(Nebraska Public Media News file photo)
By Matt Olberding, Nebraska Public Media
The dismissal of a lawsuit by a voting rights group means Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen intends to move forward with his plans to provide voting data to the federal government this week.
In September, Common Cause sued Evnen to block the release of the non-public voter file, which includes names, addresses, dates of births, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The lawsuit argued that only state officials should control Nebraska’s election data and that releasing sensitive voter information violates both voter privacy and Nebraska law.
On Friday, a Lancaster County District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit.
Common Cause said it plans to appeal the decision.
“Common Cause will continue fighting to protect your sensitive, non-public data from being handed over to unqualified bureaucrats to misuse it for partisan gain,” Gavin Geis, Common Cause Nebraska executive director, said in a news release. “We believe in the merits of this case, and we will exhaust every option to protect voters. Nebraskans shouldn’t have to wait until they experience catastrophic harm to demand that the state protect their private data.”
The lawsuit was filed after the U.S. Department of Justice called on Evnen to share the state’s unredacted voter registration data,
Evnen had previously said he planned to share the data Feb.12 – which is Thursday – if he was not blocked by a court from doing so. He said he has consulted with Attorney General Mike Hilgers and was told that doing so is legal.
A spokesperson for Evnen said he, ” intends to proceed with his previously stated plan to comply with the DOJ request on February 12″
The request for voter registration data stems from efforts by President Donald Trump and his administration to investigate past elections. In June, Trump called for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden, restating an unproven claim that the election was marred by widespread fraud.
In his first term in office, Trump requested voter information data from states, and then-Secretary of State John Gale held off on fulfilling the request. He said he would only hand over the requested information if the administration’s Presidential Commission on Election Integrity gave “assurance that this request meets compliance with Nebraska law” and details “how the data will be used, how it will be secured and how it might be publicly shared.”
Then-Gov. Pete Ricketts endorsed Gale’s decision, saying, “I think he’s spot on. Basically what he’s saying is that you have to comply with Nebraska law, and our law is specific about the uses of data. … He also had some concerns about whether the data was going to continue to be secure, and he had some questions about that.”
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