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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
STATE OF TEXAS,
Plaintiff,
v.
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., in his official capacity as
Attorney General of the United States,
Defendant.
ERIC KENNIE, et al.,
Defendant-Intervenors,
TEXAS STATE CONFERENCE OF NAACPBRANCHES, et al.,
Defendant-Intervenors,
TEXAS LEAGUE OF YOUNG VOTERS
EDUCATION FUND, et al.,
Defendant-Intervenors.
TEXAS LEGISLATIVE BLACK CAUCUS, et
al.,
Defendant-Intervenors,
VICTORIA RODRIGUEZ, et al.,
Defendant-Intervenors.
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CASE NO. 1:12-CV-00128(RMC-DST-RLW)
Three-Judge Court
JOINT STATUS REPORT CONCERNING DATABASE DISCOVERY
Pursuant to this Courts May 7, 2012 Order (Doc. 107), the
parties jointly submit a report
in order to advise the Court of the status of database
discovery.
The State of Texas
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The State of Texas produced the data requested by the Department
of Justice from the
Drivers License System Database, the License to Carry Handgun
Database and the T.E.A.M.
Database by May 4 and May 9, in accordance with the Courts
order. Counsel for the
Department of Justice has posed additional questions regarding
information pertaining to the
drivers license database and the State of Texas intends to
provide the requested information as
soon as possible. However, counsel for DOJ has confirmed this is
not a production issue.
The State of Texas produced ten sets of the data requested by
the Defendant-Intervenors
from the Drivers License System database and the License to
Carry Handgun database on May
8, 2012, in accordance with the Courts order. The State of Texas
produced ten sets of the data
requested by the Defendant-Intervenors from the T.E.A.M.
database on May 9, 2012, in
accordance with the Courts order. Production of the data
requested by Defendant-Intervenors
has been completed.
The State of Texas received notice today, May 11, that
Defendant-Intervenors are having
trouble accessing data files containing the Drivers License
System data only; disks that contain
large files with tens of millions of records. It is unclear to
the State of Texas the particular
problem Defendant-Intervenors IT expert is having with accessing
the data, but no data other
than Social Security numbers was omitted from the agreed fields
and the problem is likely an
issue of not being able to access the data provided. In
addition, IT staff at the Office of Attorney
General was able to access data in an exact copy of the disk
that Defendant-Intervenors report
difficulties accessing. Nevertheless, the State of Texas stands
ready and willing to try and assist
Defendant-Intervenors IT expert with problems he is having with
accessing the data contained
on one of the disks. Finally, Defendant-Intervenors request for
the identity of Texass database
expert is completely baseless.
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The Attorney General
The Attorney General believes that he has in his possession
complete copies of the fields
contained within the Voter Registration Database, the Driver
License Database, and the License
to Carry Database necessary to match to the extent possible
registered voters to individuals
holding photographic identification necessary under S.B. 14 in
the form of a Texas Driver
License, Texas Identification Card, or a Texas License to Carry
a Concealed Handgun. The
Attorney General has posed five outstanding questions to counsel
for the State of Texas, and
Texas has not yet answered these queries. The answers to these
additional questions will clarify
how to properly use and interpret the databases provided.
Therefore, although the Attorney
General presently anticipates that additional versions of the
databases will not be required, he
cannot be wholly certain that he has in his possession all of
the information necessary to
interpret, compare, or match the databases until these questions
are answered.
Defendant-Intervenors
An expert retained by Defendant-Intervenors, Professor Gary King
of Harvard
University, has reviewed the extracts produced this week to
Defendant-Intervenors by the State
of Texas of the drivers license database, the TEAM (voter
registration and voter history)
database, and the License to Carry Concealed Handgun (LCCH)
database. As set forth in
Professor Kings declaration and as explained below, he has
determined that one of the database
extracts for the drivers license database is non-compliant in
that it is not usable for
conducting data analyses relevant to this litigation. There is a
second issue with the LCCH,
which we believe has been resolved, but the expert had not had
an opportunity to review new
information produced by the State on that issue as of the time
of filing.
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Drivers license database: The data provided from this database
are substantially
incomplete. The State omitted from the database extract the
records for about 20 percent of the
individuals who hold a license or state ID in Texas.
The State has represented that this database, overall, includes
approximately 25 million
unique license and ID holders. The database extract produced to
Intervenors provides data in
four files (each file includes different data fields, except for
one common reference field in
each); the principal file is the person file (with 25 fields
that hold data). That file in the
version produced to the Intervenors includes only approximately
20 million records
(19,926,894), not 25 million.
1
LCCH database: Defendant-Intervenors initially identified a
problem with the LCCH
database, in that this database had been provided without a
record layout. Shortly before this
submission, the State provided Defendant-Intervenors with a
record layout, which Defendant-
Intervenors believe will resolve the problem, but their expert
had not had a chance to review the
newly-produced documents at the time of filing.
In this regard, the same file, as produced to the Justice
Department (with more expansive information relating to social
security numbers), does include
approximately 25 million records. In short, Intervenors have not
been provided records for about
five million unique holders of a license of ID. Thus, about
twenty percent of the necessary data
are missing.
A final issue that Intervenors wish to bring to the Courts
attention is that, in order to
comply with the Courts order regarding the identification of
database problems, and because, in
particular, of the States production of a non-compliant drivers
license database, the end result is
1 This file appears to be corrupted and is producing a computer
error message when the file is unzipped.
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that Intervenors now have identified to the State the identity
of their database expert. Intervenors
respectfully request, therefore, that the Court require the
State to identify any database expert it
has retained.
Date: May 11, 2012
Respectfully submitted,
RONALD C. MACHEN, JR. THOMAS E. PEREZ
United States Attorney Assistant Attorney GeneralDistrict of
Columbia Civil Rights Division
/s/ Daniel J. Freeman
T. CHRISTIAN HERREN, JR.
MEREDITH BELL-PLATTSELIZABETH S. WESTFALLBRUCE I. GEAR
JENNIFER L. MARANZANO
DANIEL J. FREEMANAttorneys
Voting Section, Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20530
(800) 253-3931
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that on May 11, 2012, I served a true and
correct copy of the foregoing via
the Courts ECF system on the following counsel of record:
Jonathan Franklin MitchellAdam W. Aston
Matthew Hamilton FrederickOffice of the Attorney General of
Texas
[email protected]
[email protected]@oag.state.tx.us
Counsel for Plaintiff
J. Gerald Hebert
[email protected]
Chad W. Dunn
Brazil & Dunn
[email protected]
Counsel for Kennie Intervenors
Debo P. AdegbileLeah C. Aden
Ryan Haygood
Dale E. HoNatasha Korgaonkar
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
[email protected]@naacpldf.org
[email protected]
[email protected]@naacpldf.org
Counsel for Texas League of Young Voters
Intervenors
Jon M. GreenbaumMark A. Posner
Lawyers Committee for Civil
[email protected]
[email protected]
Ezra David Rosenberg
Dechert LLP
[email protected]
Robert Stephen Notzon
[email protected]
Counsel for NAACP Intervenors
John [email protected]
Nancy G. Abudu
M. Laughlin McDonaldKatie OConnor
Arthur B. Spitzer
Michelle Hart YearyAmerican Civil Liberties Union
[email protected]
[email protected]@gmail.com
Counsel Texas Legislative Black Caucus
Intervenors
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Nina Perales
Amy PedersonMexican American Legal Defense &
Educational Fund, Inc.
[email protected]
[email protected]
Counsel for Rodriguez Intervenors
/s/ Daniel J. Freeman
DANIEL J. FREEMAN
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. [email protected]
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