Two months later, at the request of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, DeBeauvoir once again pulled the plug on the county's collection of online records .
Abbott's ruling stated specifically, "Prior to posting a record on the Internet, the clerk must redact the SSNs of living persons from any record subject to the PIA (Public Records Act)
Democrats weren't the only candidates who were swept into office on platforms that called for keeping the records offline. In Lubbock County, Texas where the records have never been placed online, Kelly Pinion faced three opponents for Lubbock County Clerk in the Republican primary who wanted to put the records online to benefit outside businesses.
The candidates were vying for the job previously held by Doris Ruff. Before Ruff announced she was retiring, she signed contracts with Hart InterCivic that would make it possible to publish the county's records online.
Pinion, a former public records researcher and title examiner ran on a platform of improving access at the courthouse while protecting sensitive information from being distributed over the Web.
The four-way race led to a runoff between Pinion and former Shallowater Mayor and veteran politician Mike Arismendez. When Arismendez came out with a statement that he intended to make the records “open and accessible” the voters soundly defeated the former mayor in an upset victory that gave Pinion nearly 2/3 of the vote.
Greg Hartmann learned the hard way that voters are more concerned with having their privacy protected than having their elected officials serve the wishes of businesses outside the jurisdiction. Ironically, Hartmann paid a price for his predecessor’s mistake. Greg Hartmann is the Clerk of Courts in Hamilton County, Ohio, and was the Republican nominee for Ohio Secretary of State in 2006.
Hartmann’s plan might have succeeded if the outgoing Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell hadn’t been sued in March of 2006 for exposing thousands of Ohio residents Social Security numbers on the Secretary’s website. Blackwell was making a bid for the Ohio Governor’s position at the time.
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