‘It Would Cost Us Millions’: New Jersey Law Has Political Data Brokers on Edge

New Jersey lawmakers have the campaign tech world on edge. 

Less than three months after a sweeping data privacy measure was signed into law, political data brokers are holding their breath to see whether state lawmakers will address what some in the business say are existential threats to their ability to operate in the Garden State.

The measure, which was signed into law in July just two days after it was introduced, creates the most expensive state data broker registry in the country and expands who can be held liable for penalties. While proponents of the law have argued that it’s intended to protect consumers and hold tech giants like Meta and Google accountable, political data brokers worry that they could be on the hook for massive registry fees and potential fines, undercutting their ability to collect and share crucial voter data with campaigns. 

“It would cost us millions of dollars to have New Jersey on our voter file,” said Ashley Craig, the director of client strategy and strategic partnerships at Data Trust, the main provider of voter data for Republican campaigns. If New Jersey state lawmakers don’t repeal and replace the law or come up with some other solution for political data brokers, Craig said, Data Trust might “have to drop a whole state from our voter file.”

New Jersey isn’t alone in cracking down on data brokers that sell people’s information. More than 20 states, including Texas and California, have already enacted comprehensive data privacy laws. And while those laws have created a patchwork of regulations for political data brokers to contend with, the New Jersey measure stands out for its scale and costs.

The registration fees for data brokers alone are steep, ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million annually, depending on how much data they acquire. By comparison, California, which has stringent data privacy laws of its own, charges $6,000 for data broker registration. 

New Jersey’s law also creates steep fines for data brokers who unlawfully sell demographic data – information like a person’s age, ethnicity, race or religion. Violators can face fines of up to $50,000 per record. In a state with more than 6.7 million registered voters, political data brokers could be looking at billions of dollars in liability. 

The broad sense among political data brokers and industry groups is that New Jersey lawmakers, in their rush to pass a budget, overlooked the potential consequences of the new law on political data. After all, legislators themselves rely on voter files and other data to help run their campaigns.

Still, the potential costs have created a sense of uncertainty among political data brokers about their futures in New Jersey. Paul Westcott, the president of data provider L2, said that, for his firm, the state’s data broker registration fees are the biggest burden. While those fees aren’t expected to go into effect until next year, Westcott said that it’s top of mind for him as far as the regulatory landscape is concerned. 

“We would really have to dig into our books to see how worth it it is. Losing an entire state is very bad for many reasons. One, because you lose all the business or the ability to work within that state. But also as a national voter file provider, we lose the ability to provide a true national sample.”

Ultimately, Westcott said, L2 can afford to pay the registration fee. “But it’s more about the principle.”

New Jersey lawmakers are back in Trenton as of this month, and both Westcott and Craig said they’re hopeful that the legislature will address political data brokers’ concerns before the new registration fees take effect. The American Association of Political Consultants, the main trade group representing political professionals, has also been pushing New Jersey lawmakers to repeal the measure.

Julie Sweet, the AAPC’s director of advocacy and industry relations, said that the goal isn’t to do away with New Jersey’s regulations wholesale, but rather to “bring some folks back to the table who work in this space and who understand the consequences of this law.” 

“They really are impacting the quality and the health of the voter file. I’m trying to go back to these legislators and say: we need to find a better way to balance data privacy and free speech and democratic engagement,” Sweet said. “This significantly impacts not only the efficiency or the ability to target, but it diminishes the effectiveness, because you’re not able to deliver messages that resonate with your audience.”

Whether the New Jersey legislature heeds the industry’s calls for change – or how quickly – remains to be seen.

“I appreciate that they recognize that this thing was passed quickly and that there are First Amendment concerns,” Sweet said. “But does anyone really have confidence in any legislative body working in a timely fashion?”

“I don’t think we’re putting it on Kalshi anytime soon,” she added.