On September 21, Rocky De La Fuente sued Virginia over its requirement that candidates for presidential elector must provide their full Social Security number to the State Board of Elections, before the petition for presidential ballot access may begin to circulate. De La Fuente v Alcorn, e.d., 1:16cv-1201.
The state form says the number is needed to identify the candidate in the voter rolls. This seems obviously not true. The form also asks for the voter’s name and address. That should be sufficient to identify the individual.
De La Fuente’s complaint says he was not able to circulate his petition as early as he otherwise would have, because so many potential presidential elector candidates refused to become candidates for presidential elector once they saw they had to provide their full Social Security Number.
If you look at your Social Security Card (at least on mine which was issued some 40+ years ago), it specifically states “Not to be used for Identification Purposes.” Seems like a smart lawyer could find this somewhere in the Federal codes covering Social Security and utilize the applicable section as an argument against State of Virginia (or any State) requiring a full or partial Social Security Number for identification for any purpose.
There is a federal privacy act that forbids states from doing this, unless they had already been doing it before the act was passed. When the Libertarian Party sued Kentucky over the law requiring petition signers to give their SSN, a federal court ruled that Kentucky law void because of the federal law.
What are the odds that this puts him on the ballot? Hopefully around 2-1.
Is de la Fuente from Virginia? If not, they wouldn’t have his voter registration information against which to check anything, much less a social-security number.
The requirement is for presidential elector candidates, not presidential candidates.
It is very unlikely that the lawsuit will put him on the ballot, but it may result in declaratory judgment that the state can’t require the SSN in the future for presidential elector candidates. I doubt the state forces the presidential elector candidates of the qualified parties to submit their SSN’s.
Who are the Candidates on the Virginia ballot this year who complied to the Law.
Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Evan McMullin.
How many ENEMY regimes using the SSN for invasion/felony purposes ???