The Texas attorney general's office accidently released the social security numbers of Texas voters as part of the Voter ID case, but none of the data leaked out.
Civil rights groups trying to stop a new state law requiring a photo ID to vote had asked for the voter registration rolls. The list of 13.1 million Texas voters was only supposed to include the last four digits of the voters' social security numbers.
First Assistant Attorney General Daniel Hodge said the data was supplied by 254 county registrars using different forms over several decades.
He said it was unclear how many entries had the full numbers.
Hodge said two groups discovered the error and notified his office. A state police officer immediately retrieved the encrypted discs holding the data.