The NH Senate Election Law and Internal Affairs held a hearing today on SB439, which would end New Hampshire’s participation in the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Systemand protect Granite Staters’ voter data from hacking, tampering, and theft. Crosscheck, run by the state of Kansas, is allegedly designed to identify names that are registered in more than one state. However, it utilizes minimal security in protecting the voting data, and is notorious for producing far more false positives than actual double registrants. It is a flawed, vulnerable, and expensive program. Moreover, in September, the NH Secretary of State’s office erroneously told supervisors of the voter checklist that they could remove voters flagged by Crosscheck without providing notification.
Devon Chaffee, executive director of ACLU-NH, said this about SB439: “As a state, we have gone above and beyond other states in protecting the right to privacy. Our premium on privacy demands that we end New Hampshire’s participation in Crosscheck. Granite Staters’ voter data provided to Crosscheck is stored on an insecure server that is unencrypted, vulnerable, and outdated. Data provided to Crosscheck is a sitting target for hostile outside interference.
Crosscheck is also unreliable and inaccurate. It produces an alarming rate of false positives. This puts a significant financial and human resources burden on our state to act on the information, as we must comb through the false positives to verify that we are not purging legitimate voters. The end result is a hefty price tag on Granite Staters, with little to show for it. We can do better.”