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Hallwatch Forced to Drop Street Lists
New State Regulations Discourage Political Activity
By Ed Goppelt
Wednesday, 01/29/03
(1043887892668)
New state regulations went into effect yesterday which specifically ban the
publication of voter street lists on the Internet. Street lists are
lists of registered voters organized by street.
Registered Hallwatch users had been able up until now to create custom street lists for Philadelphia. Street lists are used by candidates to plan their campaigns, for mass mailings etc. I had hoped by offering the street lists on Hallwatch to encourage a greater variety of candidates to run for office, bringing new ideas and energy to our City.
Until Hallwatch offered this ability, candidates had two choices: ask City Commissioner Margaret Tartaglione for the list and alert the democratic establishment to their plans or pay $$$ to one of the for-profit brokers of voter data, e.g. Aristotle International.
The new regs flesh out the Pennsylvania's new Voter Registration Act which establishes for the first time a state wide voter registry. The relevant reg states:
4 PA Code § 183.14 Public Information Lists
(k) The list may not be published on the Internet.
The statute does not prohibit Internet publication, only the regs on the theory that the Internet would encourage use of the list for "purposes unrelated to elections, political activities or law enforcement." These things are specifically banned by the Statute.
I am told Department of State Deputy Chief Legal Counsel Larry Boyle had a hand in drafting the new regulations. I spoke with Mr. Boyle yesterday (his phone is 717.783.1657; fax is 717.787.1734). He seems like a nice man, but even nice people make mistakes sometimes.
Mike Churchill, Chief Legal Counsel of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia has suggested challenging the Internet ban in Court. We'll see. In the meantime, I must follow the Law so this part of the site has been disabled.
Read the relevant sections of: