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Steyer aide resigns after accessing volunteer data collected by Harris campaign

Presidential candidate Tom Steyer’s campaign said it doesn’t possess the volunteer voter data collected by Sen. Kamala Harris’s campaign that was lifted by Steyer aide Dwane Sims, who accessed the information via an account he had while working with the South Carolina Democratic Party.

“We take this matter very seriously, and that is why we immediately worked with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] to disable this employee’s access to Vote Builder,” a report in the Post and Courier in South Carolina cited S.C. Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson as saying. “It is critical that the Steyer campaign take immediate action regarding their employee.”

Steyer’s camp said Democratic party officials only found out that the information was nicked after the billionaire’s campaign informed them, although the DNC and its South Carolina counterpart said that is not the case. They sent a cease and desist letter to Sims after spotting his attempts to download the information and said he confirmed the data was destroyed.

“On Friday, we learned a staffer had access to data they never should have had access to. He reported it to @scdp and we talked to @TheDemocrats immediately,” Steyer Campaign Manager Heather Hargreaves tweeted after apologizing to the Harris campaign. “The staffer inadvertently saved data from another campaign – it was subsequently deleted.”

The campaign placed Sims, its deputy state director in South Carolina, on administrative leave, and Hargreaves confirmed he had since resigned.

“I was deeply disappointed to learn of this situation, and have personally reached out to @KamalaHarris,” Steyer posted on Twitter.”

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