On 9/19/05, The Brennan Center critiqued the Carter-Baker report at length. Chapter II objected to the use of Social Security numbers in an interstate (interoperable) voter file. I agree completely with this privacy concern and therefore my proposal does not use Social Security numbers at all - just the name and address (and possibly citizenship status).

The Brennan Center also raises concerns about the accuracy of the Social Security file. While there are inevitably accuracy problems in a file of over 200 million individuals, I am certain it is more accurate than poorly-maintained county-maintained voter files. For Social Security recipients, file accuracy is enforced by recipients who monitor monthly delivery of their checks. For pre-retirees, file accuracy depends on the IRS, which gets regular updates from taxpayers, employers, and the USPS. (See footnote 1 in my proposal.)

Chapter II 
THE RECOMMENDATIONS THAT FULL SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS BE  USED IN VOTER DATABASES (SECTION 2.2) AND ON ID CARDS (SECTION 2.5) POSE SERIOUS PRIVACY AND SECURITY PROBLEMS 

With regard to the Report's interoperability recommendations, it is unquestionably beneficial to account for voters who move across state lines. Nonetheless, the Report fails to consider the serious efficacy, privacy, and security concerns raised by a nationally distributed database of the magnitude it contemplates. These problems are exacerbated by the Report's recommendation that an individual's Social Security number be used as the broadly disseminated unique voting identifier.

The Report's recommendation creates substantial privacy and security hazards. Social Security numbers unlock a vast array of information regarding private financial, employment, and medical data – and, as a result, must be kept with ironclad security. Unfortunately, existing legal limitations on and protections for Social Security numbers have been consistently whittled away over time and frequently disregarded in practice. The media regularly reports on breaches of security concerning public and private data files containing Social Security numbers.

Hackers, however, are not the only concern. Social Security numbers are also disclosed by officials entrusted with their safekeeping, despite criminal penalties against distribution. (96) For example, in 1997, Georgia's Secretary of State contracted with a credit reporting corporation in an effort to "capture" the Social Security numbers of some 400,000 registered voters without such a number on file. In due course, Georgia's entire voter registration list – records for more than four million citizens, and the associated Social Security numbers of those who had provided their number upon registration – was disclosed to the corporation, with no restrictions on the corporation's use of those numbers. (97)

The Report's recommendation to use the Social Security number as the unique identifier for tracking voters across state lines would only increase the general circulation of this financial keystone – and there is no reason to believe that new legal protections would be any more effective than their existing counterparts. The potential for improper use and disclosure will only increase.

Moreover, the Report recommends not only that the Social Security number be used as a unique interstate identifier, but also that it be placed physically on the voting ID card. (98) A misplaced or stolen card would contain, readily available on the face of the card, all information necessary to perpetrate identity theft with ease: name, signature, date of birth, current address, and Social Security number. Similarly, such personal information would be contained on photocopies of drivers licenses maintained for other purposes: for example, copies held (and potentially misplaced) by clerks at car rental agencies or volunteer poll workers. Such a card would become a treasure chest for wrongdoers, and would expose countless Americans to privacy violations, identity theft, and variety of other crimes.

In addition to the substantial privacy concerns, the Social Security number is a flawed key for tracking (and potentially purging) voters across states. The Social Security Administration was not established to construct a system of national identification, and its database contains substantial errors. For example, the SSA's Director of Information Exchange and Computer Matching has admitted that at least ten percent of the information obtained when attempting to match identifying information in the SSA database with identifying data collected in other systems by other government entities may be inaccurate. (99) The SSA's systems may be adequate for disbursing funds, but they were never intended to track individuals from one state to another for voting purposes. (100)

Finally, the Report recommends – without any discussion – that the information used as an individual's unique fingerprint to track a voter across state lines include not merely the date of birth, but also the person's "place of birth." (101) As with the Social Security number, this information is often used as a key to private information wholly unrelated to voting, and as such, disclosure presents a substantial security hazard. Moreover, this information seems particularly susceptible to use in harassing legitimate voters, particularly naturalized citizens. The reasons to protect against broad disclosure of a voter's place of birth are at least as serious as those confronting the widespread distribution of a voter's full Social Security number. Yet, as with many other issues, the Report wholly fails to consider these important concerns.

96 42 U.S.C. §§ 408(a)(8), 405(c)(2)(C)(vii)(I).
97 See Schwier v. Cox, No. 1:00-cv-2820-JEC (N.D. Ga. Jan. 31, 2005), slip op. at 5, 21 & n.9, available at
http://www.acluga.org/briefs/ssn/SSNotoVoteOrder.pdf.
98 Report at 21.
99 Remarks of Pete Monaghan, Director of Information Exchange and Computer Matching of the Social Security
Administration, at the February 2004 meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State.
100 Hearing, supra note 72.
101 Report at 12.