Summary: Bernie Sanders’ campaign team have sued the DNC for being barred from a crucial voter database.
With the Iowa caucuses just weeks away, Bernie Sanders is in trouble in his plight against Democratic competitor Hilary Clinton. That is why he and his team sued the Democratic National Committee in federal court this Friday, claiming they had lost access to crucial voter databases. Sanders’ team had accessed Hilary’s stats in a manner the DNC calls inappropriate and so they have been barred from accessing data they normally could.
Sanders’ team is claiming all this amounts to the DNC preferring Hilary as their primary candidate, whereas the DNC states simply that Sanders’ team accessed data inappropriately, and so has been locked out until an investigation clarifies what happened.
“The DNC, in an inappropriate overreaction, has denied us access to our own data,” said Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver. “In other words, the leadership of the Democratic National Committee is actively trying to undermine our campaign.
Sanders’ team, a group of four, were searching Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and other states. Regarding Iowa and New Hampshire, the Sanders campaign ran a search asking “Show me all the Clinton people rated higher than 60” and “Show me all the people rated less than 30.” These analytics were collected by Hillary’s team and could clue Sanders and his folks into where to focus their effort – on those who are rated less than 30.
Naturally, Hillary’s team is affronted by the access, according the DNS, but they are not publicizing their dismay, so as to avoid the ire of liberal groups.
For instance, Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, a liberal group plugging for Sanders recently, said, “the Democratic National Committee’s decision to attack the campaign that figured out the problem, rather than go after the vendor that made the mistake, is profoundly damaging to the party’s Democratic process.”
He also said, “DNC leaders should immediately reverse this disturbing decision before the committee does even more to bring its neutrality in the race for President into question.”
The DNC has a different take, saying “Over the course of approximately 45 minutes, staffers of the Bernie Sanders campaign inappropriately accessed voter targeting data belonging to the Hillary Clinton campaign,” as Wasserman Schultz said.
She continued: “Once the DNC became aware that the Sanders campaign had inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data, and in doing so violated the agreement that all the presidential campaigns have signed with the DNC, as the agreement provides, we directed NGP VAN [the vendor that supplies access to the database] to suspend the Sanders campaign’s access to the system until the DNC is provided with a full accounting of whether or not this information was used and the way in which it was disposed.”
Whether or not the Sanders team is at fault, they are out of luck, and suing may not do much to save them. They have a matter of weeks before they go head to head with Hilary in Iowa, a key state, which may determine who the Democratic ticket will ultimately go to.
Source: CNN