## Facts

- Virginia required otherwise qualified voter applicants who possessed Social Security numbers (SSNs) to provide an SSN on the voter registration application; applicants without SSNs received a substitute number.
- Virginia made voter registration materials available for inspection in the registrar’s office; in practice, the records included the voter’s application and SSN.
- Virginia also provided statewide voter lists containing SSNs to specified groups (including candidates, political parties, incumbents, and certain nonprofits) subject to an oath restricting use to stated purposes.
- Marc Alan Greidinger completed a voter registration application but refused to disclose his SSN.
- The general registrar denied Greidinger’s registration, and he therefore could not vote in the November 1991 general election.
- The application did not indicate whether SSN disclosure was mandatory or voluntary, the authority for requesting it, the intended uses, or that the SSN could be disseminated through voter records and lists.
- Greidinger challenged the SSN requirement and its public availability as an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

## Issues

1. Whether conditioning voter registration on SSN disclosure, coupled with broad public access to SSNs through voter records and lists, unconstitutionally burdens the fundamental right to vote under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
2. Whether the asserted interests in accurate voter identification and fraud prevention justify the scheme under strict scrutiny.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court.
- The court held that Virginia’s scheme, to the extent it conditioned the franchise on mandatory SSN disclosure that would then be subject to broad inspection and dissemination, imposed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the appellate decision.

## Legal Principles

- Voting is a fundamental right; when a regulation substantially burdens that right, strict scrutiny applies.
- A state must show that a voting regulation is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.
- Although accurate voter identification and fraud prevention are weighty interests, the state must justify not only collection of identifying information but also any public disclosure that materially increases risk to registrants.
- Conditioning the right to vote on surrendering a highly sensitive identifier to broad public access is unconstitutional when the state can achieve its objectives through less burdensome means (e.g., using SSNs for internal administrative purposes without public dissemination).

## Conclusion

Virginia could not require a qualified voter to disclose an SSN as a condition of registration where the SSN would become broadly available through voter inspection and distribution of voter lists; the public-dissemination feature was not narrowly tailored to the state’s antifraud and administrative interests and therefore unconstitutionally burdened the right to vote.


Greidinger v. Davis, 988 F.2d 1344 (4th Cir. 1993)