Georgia Secretary of State Brian KempATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp acknowledged Wednesday that Social Security numbers and other personal information for the state’s more than 6 million registered voters were released last month to political parties and media organizations, as his office faces a lawsuit filed this week.
Attorney Jennifer Auer Jordan filed the complaint in Fulton County Superior Court on behalf of two women and is seeking class-action status. The lawsuit says driver’s license numbers and dates of birth also were included in the files that Kemp’s office disseminated in October.
Kemp’s office regularly sends an updated list of all registered voters in the state to political parties and media organizations as allowed by Georgia law. The state charges a $500 fee for others who want to buy the file. It is only supposed to include a voter’s name, residence, mailing address, race, gender, registration date and last voting date.
Kemp said in a statement that the personal information was put in the wrong file because of a “clerical error.” He said 12 recipients got discs containing the information.
“This violated the policies that I put in place to protect voters personal information,” Kemp said. “My office undertook immediate corrective action, including contacting each recipient to retrieve the disc, and I have taken additional administrative action within the agency to deal with the error.”