Sanders Campaign Regains Access to DNC Voter Data

Revelations that campaign workers for Sanders improperly accessed voter data compiled by the Clinton campaign have thrown a wild card into the primary season’s third debate, set for 5 p.m. PT from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, and broadcast on ABC.

“What we were asking for, that they had been refusing to provide us with, is who on the Sanders campaign accessed the information, what information they accessed, and that they weren’t able to get access to it and manipulate that”, Wasserman Schultz said.

After months of relative civility, the Democratic presidential candidates take the debate stage on Saturday night amid an outburst of hostilities surrounding accusations that Bernie Sanders’ campaign stole valuable voter information from front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Early Saturday, the DNC said the Sanders campaign had complied with its request for information about the incident. At the last debate, just one day after the Paris attacks, Sanders didn’t seem comfortable discussing national security issues, though he and O’Malley did succeed in pushing Clinton on how she would differ from the Obama administration on foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Clinton’s campaign is accusing the Sanders campaign of theft and saying they’re downplaying the situation.

“The DNC may not suspend the Campaign’s access to critical Voter Data out of haste or desperation to clean up after the DNC’s own mistakes”, the complaint adds.

The political brawl came one day before a debate between the presidential rivals, fueling rising tensions and highlighting complaints from Sanders and his liberal allies that the DNC is trying to help Clinton, particularly by limiting the number of debates and scheduling them on low-viewership periods like Saturday nights.

“Thankfully, after refusing to give us the information we were asking for for almost two days, last night, we did reach an agreement with the campaign”, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told CNN’s Victor Blackwell Saturday morning.

The Sanders campaign employees who accessed the Clinton voter information without authorization appear to have run afoul of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, said Jason Weinstein, a former supervisor of the Justice Department’s computer crimes section. The Sanders campaign fired Josh Uretsky, a staff member involved in gaining access, but said the vendor was responsible for the problems. “While the trust of grassroots Democrats in the DNC’s neutrality in the presidential race can only be restored with time and actions, the reversal of this disturbing decision is a good first step in the right direction”.

The file starts with a state’s official voter registration data: all the information provided by voters when they registered to vote, like their name, address, sex, age, party registration and – in a few states – race.

Hillary Clinton is on the campaign trail nearly daily, and remains well ahead of both Sanders and O’Malley. While Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver blasted the DNC for “actively attempting to undermine our campaign”, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called it an “egregious breach” of “stolen” data and accused the Sanders campaign of playing politics for fundraising off the dispute. He said his team did not export any data and that he intentionally left a record of what he was doing in the system and did not try to hide his actions.

The campaigns use this information for just about everything.

The DNC says it will continue to investigate the data breach so that it doesn’t happen again. “Bernie Sanders’ campaign’s access to a critically-important voter database”, the campaign said.

Sanders supporters were outraged by the DNC’s response to the breach.

“Think about it. The Republicans stand before the nation, they malign our President’s record of achievements, they denigrate women and immigrant families, they double down on trickle-down, and tell their false story”, Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley said in August.

ABC News is providing live coverage of the New Hampshire Democratic Debate, including live analysis and commentary before, during and after the debate.