State and federal class- action lawsuits filed last week claim that the elections board acted negligently in late 2003 and early 2004 when it distributed more than 100 CD-ROMs containing the Social Security numbers and other personal data of more than 1.3 million voters to aldermen and members of local ward committees.

A 2003 fire at the Cook County Administration Building led to the distribution of CD-ROMs containing voters' Social Security numbers.The 11-page state and six-page federal lawsuits ask that the board be ordered to recover the discs and erase the data on them. The lawsuits, which seek unspecified monetary damages, also call on the board to notify all the individuals affected by the breach.

"What we'd like to see is some sort of an endowment for people whose credit might have been damaged by this," said Nick Kefalos, the attorney, who filed the lawsuits. Kefalos works at Vernor Moran LLC, a Chicago-based law firm.

How it happened

Jim Allen, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, explained that under Illinois law, elections authorities are required to make reports on registered voters available to candidates and local officials.