A U.S. District Court in Virginia will hear De La Fuente v Alcorn on February 17, Friday, at 10 a.m. The issue is the law that requires candidates for presidential elector to reveal their full Social Security number before an independent presidential petition may begin to circulate. Part of the reason for this requirement is that the Virginia Constitution requires voters to reveal their full social security number just in order to register to vote. So many Virginia official election forms require the full SSN for various other purposes, including declarations of candidacy. De La Fuente argues that many potential presidential elector candidates for him refused to run because they didn’t want to reveal their full SSN.
A bill is pending in the legislature that would begin the process of changing the state constitution, to delete the requirement that voter registration forms show the full SSN. It is HJR 552, by Delegate James LeMunyon (R-Herndon).
No other state constitution goes into such detail about what must be on a voter registration application.
I’m wondering how it got into the Virginia Constitution since SSN didn’t exist until over 150year after it became a state.
Most state constitutions are frequently amended. And social security has existed for 80 years.
The current constitution dates from 1971, and the Social Security requirement was in place at the time. In 1974, Congress restricted use of SSN, but grandfathered in existing use.
The use of SSN in Virginia was challenge in ‘Greidinger v. Davis’ in the early 1990s. A federal district court in Virginia ruled that Virginia was violating federal law by not disclosing why they were collecting SSN (Virginia actually argued that they had made disclosure to the plaintiff after he had sued them). The court ruled that the federal government wanted Virginia to disclosure to every voter why Virginia was collecting SSN.
The plaintiff’s primary concern was that Virginia was including the SSN when they distributed voting lists. The 4th Circuit partially reversed the district court decision, and ordered Virginia to redact SSN from distributed voting lists.
So since then, Virginia requires SSN to register to vote, but includes an explanation on the voter registration form, and redacts them from distributed lists of voters.
On candidate petition forms, the use of SSN is listed as optional. De La Fuente argues that voters were refusing to sign when they saw the column. A circulator would in effect be saying, “I’m collecting full names, addresses, signatures, and SSN, and get paid $X for doing so, but don’t worry, it’s just for helping to get a person you’ve never heard of on the ballot.” By the time a voter started wondering about identity theft or whether it “Rogue” or “Roque”, a paid circulator is likely to be moving on to the next target.
It sounds like the circulators were also recruiting presidential electors, since their name has to appear on the petition forms. If someone had been identified as a Trump or Clinton supporter, and was asked to be a presidential elector, there would likely be little hesitation to give up their SSN. But if there aren’t actually any De La Fuente supporters, the SSN is just another reason not to agree.