The DNC acted hastily in restricting the Sanders campaign access to vital voter data. It (DNC) has not taken into consideration all of the facts involved. The Sanders campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, told CNN, "Our campaign months ago alerted the DNC to the fact that campaign data was being made available to other campaigns. At that time our campaign did not run to the media, relying instead on assurances from the vendor,"

We hereby petition for the lifting of the Sanders presidential campaign access to vital voter data for the following reasons:

• Months ago the Sanders campaign alerted the DNC to the fact that data was being made available to other campaigns
• The Sanders campaign did not alert the media, but instead relied on assurances from the vendor
• In October 2015, the Sanders campaign reported a firewall breach to the DNC who thanked them for reporting it and said the breach had been closed (the data breach problem was not corrected as it occurred again)
• The DNC was fully aware of the security breaches yet there is no evidence to show that they exercised fiduciary diligence to any of the democratic campaigns
• The DNC chose to punish the campaign who actually reported the security breach
• The Sanders campaign was trying to determine if their voter data was also viewable by the other campaigns (it is not known if the other campaigns could see the unsecured data or if only the Sanders campaign had access)
• The DNC's decision will basically throw the DNC nomination to the leading opponent's campaign
• The security vendor, NGP Van, should be held solely responsible for past and present security breaches and Sanders campaign suspension lifted

The decision to suspend the Sanders campaign from access to voter data is heavy-handed and does not address the real problem. The DNC was alerted about their vendor's mishandling of the firewall as it performed updates yet chose not to audit their contractor or do anything to fix the problem.