Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Elections Candidate Data topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Secretary of State backs collecting candidate demographic data but proposes privacy safeguards
Summary
The Secretary of State’s Office told the committee it supports collecting voluntary candidate demographic data in an aggregated, redactable system and proposed housing the data in the campaign finance system rather than on candidate consent forms to protect privacy.
The Secretary of State’s Office told the House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee on March 12 that it supports collecting candidate demographic information — gender, age, race or ethnicity — but recommended changes to how the data are collected and stored to protect candidates’ privacy.
Hibbert and Sheehan proposed removing demographic questions from public consent forms and instead collecting the information in the state campaign finance system. ‘‘This would be in a place where we can aggregate it, where we can redact it if asked for publicly,’’ Hibbert said. The office proposed that town clerks continue to file candidate names, street addresses and email addresses with the Secretary of State and notify the office of changes.
The nut graf: the office recommended a three-part approach: (a) require clerks to file core contact details with the Secretary of State, (b) allow candidates to voluntarily submit demographic information in a format the Secretary of State specifies, and (c) keep individual demographic data confidential while publishing only aggregate summaries.
Committee members asked about data security. Hibbert said the demographic data would be stored in the Secretary of State’s cloud-hosted campaign finance system, which the office said is protected by penetration testing, industry security standards and web access controls. She emphasized it would not be an open web form or a public spreadsheet.
Ending: The committee accepted the office’s recommended redrafting for sections 10–12 and asked staff to include language making the demographic fields voluntary and keeping raw data confidential while allowing aggregate publication.
