DOJ wants sensitive data on every US voter. Some states fight back
The federal government is in a legal battle with several states over an unprecedented attempt by the Department of Justice to compile sensitive personal data on virtually every voter in the U.S.
So far, at least two federal judges have sided with states that have refused to turn over the data, which includes voters’ names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers and home addresses.
On Friday, a federal judge in Georgia became the latest to erect a roadblock to the data collection effort. A similar ruling was issued in California, and a federal judge in Oregon reportedly has indicated he may dismiss a case there. The Justice Department had sued 21 other states and the District of Columbia.
In a statement, the department said the data collected from complying states is “being screened for ineligible voter entries.” Officials say the Justice Department is sharing the voter data with the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement.
The data collection worries privacy advocates and election experts, who say voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare. For instance, a study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that in the 2016 election, only 0.0001% of votes cast were by noncitizens.
“The attempt to sweep up this data is of concern,” Eileen O’Connor, senior counsel at the Brennan Center, told Straight Arrow News on Monday. “The federal government is not supposed to be collecting all this data on its citizens.”
“One of the concerning things about the federal government doing this, it’s essentially a black box,” O’Connor said. “They would be taking the voter rolls … running checks, comparing them to other lists of reliability and completion, then sending the states back a list of voters that they just then have to remove. It’s turning upside down the way the system is supposed to work.”
The Brennan Center is actively tracking these requests. At least eight of the 44 states asked for the information have complied.
The Justice Department did not respond to SAN’s request for comment. But in a statement, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department is making sure states are actively preventing noncitizen voting.
“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance,” Bondi said. “The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”
O’Connor said the Justice Department seems to have no evidence of failings by states.
“There seems to be no basis that states have fallen out of compliance with these laws, …” she said. “The idea that there is a widespread noncompliance with these laws, there is just no evidence to support that.”
Federal takeover
Some experts, including O’Connor, suggest the demand for voter files could be part of an attempted federal takeover of federal elections or an attempt to interfere with elections. They say federal officials have repeatedly tried to prove President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
“The people who lead the Justice Department spent a lot of time on the 2020 election, claiming that the results were not accurate,” said O’Connor, a former trial attorney in the voting section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “It’s not at all a leap to assume they would use these voter rolls to further promote false claims if the election doesn’t come out the way they want.”
“The states have procedures in place to determine when people have moved, or when people have died, to make sure they get removed from the voter rolls,” she said. “The federal government does not have the authority to be doing that. The states have the exclusive authority to register voters and maintain their voter lists. The federal government does not have the tools or the expertise to do this.”
Georgia refuses
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger provided some voter information to the Justice Department, but he refused to turn over information such as Social Security numbers, saying that it is protected information.
Raffensperger, a Republican who is running for his party’s nomination for governor this year, argued that the Justice Department exceeded its authority in asking for the data. The judge did not rule on the substance of the case, but dismissed the lawsuit because it was filed in the Middle District of Georgia, not the Northern District, which includes Atlanta, the state capital.
It is unclear if the DOJ will file again in a different court.
This is not Raffensperger’s first time at odds with the Trump administration. In 2020, he taped a telephone call from Trump in which the president asked him to “find” enough votes to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. The call became a key component of Trump’s indictment in an election-interference case in Atlanta. The indictment was dismissed late last year.
“I will always follow the law and follow the Constitution,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “I refuse to violate the oath I took to stand up for the people of this state, regardless of who or what compels me to do otherwise.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
