The Arizona Republic

Oct. 18, 2000

An online political consulting company and a petition-gathering firm somehow got the 1998 database of voter registrations that is supposed to be restricted to the Elections Department and major political parties, department director Karen Osborne said.

The courts have ordered addresses and other sensitive voter-registration information about police, judges and hundreds of abused spouses to be withheld from public view since the 1998 database was created.

But this sensitive information was offered for sale by Aristotle Publishing Co. and was in the hands of Lee Petition Management Co., as recently as a few months ago, said Jill Kennedy, deputy Maricopa County attorney.

Aristotle has stopped offering the data on the Internet and Lee has turned over its copy of the database to the County Attorney's Office, Kennedy said.

Improper use of the voter database can result in a felony conviction and prison term.

We have only allegations of where it was obtained, Kennedy said. It's a pending investigation.

Kennedy testified before a committee of legislators and election officials who are seeking greater controls over voter-registration files, which are public records under state law.

When Libertarian Party member Ernie Hancock threatened to post the Maricopa County voter-registration list on the Internet in February, Osborne won a court order against him, and lawmakers banned electronic transmission of the database.

But election officials need to transmit the data to printers, and political parties want to transmit it to candidates for use in their campaigns, Osborne said.

The study committee meets again after the Nov. 7 general election to recommend new laws on Internet security of voter data.

The Legislature will consider the issue in its regular session in January.