Mississippi has become the latest state to reject the request for personal data on all registered voters from President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission.
Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann’s office has not yet received a request from the commission but will refuse to comply when it does receive one, joining several other states that are rejecting the request.
“They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from,” Hosemann, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday. “Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our state’s right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes.”
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter to the states on June 28 asking for voters’ names, addresses, birth dates, voting history and military status, among other information. The letter did not detail what the commission will do with the data, but asked states to send it by July 14. The commission said everything would be made publicly available.
Hosemann is one of the first Republican secretaries of state to publicly reject the commission’s request. California, New York and Virginia have also said they will refuse to comply with the request, and Connecticut said it would hold back protected data.
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Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com