TPMMuckraker

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Former Dem Threatened With Legal Action Over Last-Minute Voter Data Download

Justin Elliott | December 29, 2009, 1:11PM

The Alabama Democratic Party is drafting a letter to Rep. Parker Griffith (R-AL) threatening legal action if he does not delete voter data the Dems say was improperly accessed by Griffith operatives on the eve of his party switch.

Jim Spearman, executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party, tells TPMmuckraker he plans to send the letter to Griffith and Main Street Strategies, the consulting firm accused of downloading the confidential information, today.

Griffith's office is pledging to delete the data, which it says was generated by the campaign anyways. But Spearman told us that he doesn't think the information has been, or will be, deleted.

Meanwhile, in an interview with us today, a spokesman for the state GOP left open the possibility that the Dem voter data could end up in the hands of the Republican Party.

Here's how it all happened, according to Spearman: On Dec. 21, the day before Griffith announced he would become a Republican, his political consultants at Main Street Strategies accessed a Democratic Party database. Someone at the firm downloaded several thousand voter IDs (eg "strong Democrat" or "leans Republican") associated with calls made by the party in Griffith's 5th congressional district. Main Street also got information on people who had put up yard signs and volunteered for Democratic candidates.

According to Spearman, Dem records also show that Main Street tried to download the full voting history of the district but didn't have a required password. He says Main Street hadn't accessed the database in many months, until the downloads on the day before Griffith's switch.

Dem officials realized what had happened when they went "to check all of our files to make sure Griffith's people weren't doing what they did." They went public with the charge Dec. 23, the day after the switch.

More . . .

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What a dude! Can you only expect zero integrity from politicos?

I would really like to see one that come through that bucks that learning!

-- Edited by Sanders on Tuesday 29th of December 2009 05:32:51 PM