Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney isn’t holding back after the state's Democratic Party say he backed down from a request by the Trump Administration's voter fraud commission due to a lawsuit they filed.
In a guest opinion piece sent to newspapers, Denney describes the lawsuit filed by the Democrats as “absolutely unfounded” and “frivolous.” Denney calls out party chairman Bert Marley for releasing a statement saying the Dems protected the privacy of residents by negotiating a settlement with him, which included a provision to not send sensitive voter information to the Trump commission. Denney says that’s not the case.
Sam Dotters-Katz is legal counsel for the Idaho Democrats. He says, “The Secretary of State’s lawyers and now the Secretary of State’s press office has called our lawsuit frivolous and baseless. But interestingly, within the last 24 hours, the League of Women Voters of Texas and Texas’s NAACP branch filed a lawsuit against their secretary of state which absolutely mirrored ours.”
According to Denney, he never made an announcement saying his office was complying with the Dems and says the decision to not send voter data to the fraud commission was made separately from the lawsuit – not because of it.
“Lawyers for the Attorney General’s office approached us and asked us to settle the lawsuit, and offered us terms which included everything we wanted in the first place,” says Dotters-Katz. “They agreed to be restrained from complying by giving us ten days notice. They agreed to having to tell us whether or not they would comply. And they, at the time of our settlement, would not be complying with the request from the commission.”
Denney asserts the request for information that included dates of birth and the final four digits of Social Security numbers was suspended by the Trump commission itself. According to him, no refusal was necessary. He’s posted a timeline on his website outlining events surrounding the commission.
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