Sanders files suit to regain access to DNC voter database

Bernie sanders’ campaign on the defensive after staffers accessed Hillary Clinton’s confidential voter files.

The Democratic National Committee has agreed to allow the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders access to its own voter database, reversing a Friday decision to suspend access following a data breach, the campaign said.

The DNC had blocked access to the voter data after a Sanders campaign staffer improperly accessed Clinton’s voter files, prompting charges of theft from the Clinton campaign and setting off a bitter political fight in what had been a relatively peaceful Democratic nominating race. The DNC blocked the campaign from the resource Friday after a Sanders staffer accessed data collected and organized by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

The about face came late on Friday night as a deadline neared for a hearing on a motion for an emergency injunction which the Sanders campaign sought after he sued the party in U.S. District Court in Washington.

“Unfortunately, yesterday, the vendor once again dropped the firewall between the campaigns for some data”. “We didn’t actually use it for anything valuable and we didn’t take custodianship of it”. And while the Sanders campaign’s access has been restored for now, expect the clash to resurface during the prime-time debate – which Sanders supporters already believed was being buried on a Saturday evening right before Christmas to help Clinton.

Uretsky asserted that he was going to report the issue to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), but instead they called him first with a warning that there was something fishy going on in NGP VAN’s servers.

“The DNC has taken away our access to our data”, Weaver said.

Uretsky, the fired staffer, told MSNBC he had to assume Sanders’ data was also exposed, so “we wanted to document and understand the scope of the problem so that we could report it accurately”.

He said the Sanders campaign had fired one staffer involved and was looking into the extend of involvement of others.

On the call with reporters, Mook accused the Sanders campaign of “downplaying” the “egregious” situation and said that while the Clinton campaign won’t be playing an active role in resolving the issue, “it is is critical that each campaign only have access to data that belongs to it and we need to be assured that the Sanders campaign no longer has access to our data”.

Asked about Clinton’s data, he said the Sanders team was not trying to disguise its action.

“The Sanders campaign has now complied with the DNC’s request to provide the information that we have requested of them”.

New Hampshire Party Chairman Ray Buckley said this automatically meant that Sanders would lose access to the more detailed file in the Granite State.

“This was not an instance where they happened upon information casually”, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said.

The party’s move follows a similar denial from the Democratic National Committee, which concluded earlier this week that a Sanders staffer violated its voter database access rules.

“The DNC places a high priority on maintaining the security of our system and protecting the data on it”, said DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda in a statement.

Uretsky and his team notified people within the Sanders campaign of the breach on Wednesday and the news worked its way up the chain of command.

NGP VAN will be performing a forensic examination of the incident, and an independent auditor will conduct a parallel analysis to find out what exactly went on.

“I think the DNC’s crossed the line and it’s going to open up a whole new part in the campaign season”, said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, a liberal group that endorsed Sanders.