Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee in federal court to regain access to Democratic Party voter data, claiming a breach of contract.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Sanders campaign claimed that by blocking access to the voter data, his campaign is losing over $600,000 per day in potential campaign donations. The suit argues that the DNC’s action represents an “ongoing breach of the Parties’ agreement regarding use of DNC National voter file data.”
The DNC blocked the campaign from the essential voter database on Friday after learning that the campaign illicitly viewed data from the Clinton campaign. While the Sanders campaign admitted the breach, and fired the staffer responsible, they claimed that the only reason the data was so easily available was because of the malfunction of a DNC contracted software company.
Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver warned reporters during a press conference on Friday that “if the DNC continues to hold our data hostage, and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking an immediate injunction.”
The injunction requires the DNC to “use security measures, with respect to the campaign data, that are consistent with good practices in the data processing industry” and ensure that all services are “performed in a professional and workmanlike manner, consistent with industry standards in the data processing industry.”
Furthermore, the agreement requires the DNC to “take all measures necessary to protect the secrecy of, and to avoid disclosure and unauthorized use of” confidential information disclosed by the campaign to the DNC and ensures that the DNC “immediately notify the campaign in the event of any unauthorized use or disclosure of the [campaign’s] confidential information.”
