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Stay away from my voter information

By now, you’ve probably at least heard about a request made by the federal government through its recently created Election Integrity Commission.

The panel was formed by the Trump administration following numerous claims by the president that millions of illegal voters participated in the 2016 election, giving his opponent the popular vote. Never mind that he won the Electoral College, which actually determines the outcome.

The request is for each registered voter’s full name, date of birth, partial Social Security number, home address, political affiliation, voting history since 2006, military service (if applicable), any felony convictions, whether they have been registered to vote in other states and whether they have lived overseas.

Thankfully, many states are denying this request, either in full or in part.

Commission officials have since claimed they are only looking for what information from that list is publicly available. It shouldn’t matter. No one should have that kind of access to any one person, let alone millions of Americans.

West Virginia reportedly has pledged not to provide any private information. That’s good, but it’s still a troubling situation that this request is being made at all.

The commission officials also now say their efforts are a way to clean up the voter rolls. Well, that’s usually done at the state level, such as the efforts over the last few months by West Virginia’s Secretary of State and his staff.

Our election system is decentralized in a way to prevent widespread voter tampering. Does it happen? Sure, but not in a way where millions of people can illegally vote the way it has been suggested.

We vote locally. The votes are tallied locally, with the numbers then sent to the state election offices. The state then tallies those numbers. Please read that again. Elections are guided from the state level. The federal government has very little to do with it. So why is the federal government requesting all of this personal information?

This isn’t a Democrat and Republican thing. It would be a troubling situation no matter who was residing in the White House or which party had the most seats in Congress.

I personally don’t like the thought of some people in Charleston having access to some of this information. I definitely don’t want people in Washington to have such unfettered access to that, or any, portion of my personal life.

It just seems that this is one case where the federal government is trying to put its hands where they don’t belong.

(Howell, a resident of Colliers, is managing editor of The Weirton Daily Times, and can be contacted at chowell@weirtondailytimes.com or followed on Twitter @CHowellWDT)

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