The ASUO accidentally released a list of student voters that it registered this fall, but ASUO Executive members said voters should not expect phone calls urging people to vote for a certain candidate.
The ASUO put its new voter information into a database for “Youth Vote 2000,” a study run by a Yale professor who wants to examine why students vote. ASUO members will call students urging them to turn in their mail-in ballots.
But a few weeks ago, two University students who work in the ASUO got the list, and that has graduate English student Scott Austin asking that any group have access.
The controversy began with what ASUO Legislative Organizer Melissa Unger called a “misunderstanding.”
Alan Tauber, who helped the ASUO file about 5,000 voter registration cards in a computer database, gave a copy of the list to senior political science major Dan Katz. At the same time, under the impression that she had full permission to do so, Sen. Jennifer Greenough printed the first 1,000 names from the database, Unger said.
Katz and Greenough intended to use the list to help with Oregon Judge Paul DeMuniz’s campaign for State Supreme Court, which they both support.
The DeMuniz campaigners called some of the voters in the database while they possessed the information, Unger said. Unger said she told them to stop calling and to provide a list of the people they contacted.
They have stopped calling and have promised to deliver the list of names.
Austin said he obtained a copy of the list at the same time as the DeMuniz campaign, and he could have called people as Katz and Greenough did. But, Unger said, just as the ASUO trusts the DeMuniz campaigners, it trusts Austin not to use the list, either.
“I have no facts or reasons to disbelieve these people,” Unger said.
But because DeMuniz supporters already had the opportunity to use the complete list, Austin said, it should be open to everybody.
“It’s a matter of access,” he said.
Unger and ASUO State Affairs Coordinator Brian Tanner both said they will not release the complete list until after the election. The ASUO voter study will be contaminated, they said, if political parties begin calling the same voters that the ASUO is calling.
“Our biggest concern is the study and making sure it is non-partisan,” Tanner said. “That’s why we don’t want to give out the list.”
Tauber said he will keep the database on a backup disk in case the computer crashes, but will not make a printout.
“That list has never been disseminated, except briefly to Mr. Katz,” Tauber said. “It’s not my list to use. I shan’t.”
Unger said it makes perfect sense for Tauber to have a backup because he is the project’s technical support. She confirmed that Tauber has not printed a list.
Katz said he is frustrated that the integrity of those organizing the ASUO voter participation campaign is being questioned, saying that they’ve “put in hours and hours of time for a very worthy cause.”
He also said Austin is simply using the controversy to gain leverage in the ASUO, and called him “a McCarthyite.”
“I’m disturbed by his tactics of intimidation and innuendo,” he said.
Tanner said anyone can legally obtain a registered voter database from Lane County Elections for a fee. He added that anyone can filter that list down to just students.
But Austin said he wants the ASUO’s list because it is already narrowed down to those he is interested in calling.
Unger and Tanner stand firm with their refusal to release the database.
“We have done nothing wrong and … they’re trying to scare us,” Unger said.
Austin thinks Unger and Tanner’s expectation that those who have the list will not use it is unrealistic. He wants everyone to have the list or nobody at all.
“It’s not good enough to ask them not to use it,” he said. “It’s like giving a kid a box of candy and saying don’t eat it.”