State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) announced Sunday evening that he was launching an investigation into how students from Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, and Northern Arizona University received text messages from the Kamala Harris presidential campaign on the last day before voter registration ends in the state. Hoffman, who chairs the Senate Committee on Government, expressed concern that it might violate FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy act that protects students.
Hoffman told The Arizona Sun Times on Sunday, “I was made aware of this breach of security by dozens of students today, and intend to throw the full weight of the Arizona Senate into ascertaining how the Harris campaign acquired these students’ legally protected personally identifiable information.”
The College Republicans at ASU broke the story on X on Sunday. They posted, “150,000 students from ALL Arizona universities including ASU and UofA have received a text from Kamala Harris’ campaign telling the students to vote for her. If Kamala Harris has access to all of Arizona college students’ phone numbers, what ELSE do they have?”
A source who prefers not to be identified who buys access to phone numbers for campaign work told The Sun Times there is a program that allows campaigns to access the phone numbers of college students. However, it does not narrow them down by college. The text message from the Harris campaign to the ASU students began, “Hi Sun Devils…” The source said that shows the access must have come directly from the school.
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