Arizona becomes the ninth state to withdraw from controversial program which is continuing to die a long, agonizing death while continuing to cost taxpayers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 29, 2019
CONTACT: Mark McCormick, Director of Strategic Communications, 913-490-4113, [email protected]
OVERLAND PARK, KS - There’s no good reason for Kansas to continue using Cross Check.
• The controversial program is the subject of a 2018 class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Kansas on behalf of 945 voters whose partial Social Security numbers were exposed by Florida officials through an open records request;
• Sensitive, personal voter information was shared with participating states via unencrypted email;
• Independent research showed that Cross Check produced false positive duplicate matches 99 percent of the time;
• Nine states – Arizona most recently -- have dropped out of the multi-state program that was free for those states because Kansas taxpayers funded the program;
• And last month, State Elections Director Bryan Caskey told lawmakers the program hasn’t been used since 2017;
“Unless the goal is to continue denying Kansans their voting rights and leaving them vulnerable to identity fraud, why would we keep using this program?” said the ACLU of Kansas’ Interim Executive Director Lauren Bonds.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), cited privacy concerns in canceling that state's participation.
"I am not willing to take any chances with the security and accuracy of our voter registration list. I want to make it absolutely clear that we are not sending information to Crosscheck. Arizona voters will not be put at risk of having their voter registration wrongly canceled based on inaccurate information," Hobbs said in a statement.
The program, which compares voter registration lists in search of duplicates, was founded in 2005 by then-Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh (R). It was meant to compare voter records in four, neighboring states to identify duplicate or outdated registrations.
The program returned false positives, leading states to cancel legitimate voter registrations.
Thornburgh's successor, Kris Kobach (R), weaponized it while helping spread the program to 29 states.
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About the ACLU of Kansas: The ACLU of Kansas is the statewide affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU of Kansas is dedicated to preserving and advancing the civil rights and legal freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. For more information, visit our website at www.aclukansas.org.