All articles tagged with #voter rolls
Top election officials from both parties warn that President Trump is ramping up efforts to interfere in state election administration ahead of the 2026 midterms, citing DOJ requests for voter-roll data and an FBI raid on Fulton County's elections office; as officials gathered at a conference, concerns about federal overreach persisted even as many plan contingency steps to safeguard election integrity.
Democratic state election officials are rebuffing the Justice Department’s push for access to state voter rolls, warning the move could enable immigration enforcement in elections and signaling a broad federal-state clash while some states comply and others sue.
A federal judge in Oregon dismissed the Justice Department's bid to obtain unredacted voter registration lists for about 3.8 million voters, saying the DOJ failed to meet the legal standard. Oregon argued privacy and First Amendment protections bar such disclosures. The ruling is part of a broader DOJ effort to access state voter rolls that has faced setbacks in other states, though DOJ documents show coordination with the DHS on data use for investigations.
Attorney General Pam Bondi urged Minnesota to share state voter rolls and public-assistance data with the federal government to aid immigration enforcement and end sanctuary policies, a request Minnesota officials called unlawful and coercive as tensions rise in Minneapolis over a federal crackdown.
DOJ court filings reveal corrections suggesting two DOGE team members at the Social Security Administration had broader access to SSA data than acknowledged and may have helped an advocacy group match voter rolls for overturning election results; the filings also show data shared via the unapproved third‑party server Cloudflare, and Steve Davis was copied on a March 3, 2025 email that included a password‑protected file with private SSA data for about 1,000 people. SSA says the DOGE work was intended to detect fraud and modernize systems, but the disclosures raise Hatch Act concerns and questions about data handling; White House and SSA declined comment.
A federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking California’s voter rolls, calling the demand unprecedented, illegal and a threat to democracy, and warned that centralizing such data could chill voter registration and turnout. The ruling sides with California officials who argued the data request overstepped federal authority and improperly used civil rights laws to amass millions of voter records. The decision halts the DOJ’s bid tied to broader federal efforts to scrub and review voter rolls ahead of elections.
The DOJ has proposed a confidential agreement to over a dozen states, mainly Republican-led, to remove ineligible voters based on federal review, raising concerns about federal overreach, privacy, and the potential creation of a national voter database, with some states rejecting the proposal.
The DOJ has filed lawsuits against six additional Democratic-led states to obtain unredacted voter data, citing the Civil Rights Act of 1960, raising concerns about privacy and state control over election data amid ongoing legal battles.
The U.S. Justice Department sued California and other states for refusing to share voter rolls, claiming it hinders federal efforts to ensure election integrity, while California officials argue the lawsuit is an overreach and threatens voter privacy.
The Justice Department has filed federal lawsuits against six states—California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania—for failing to produce their voter registration lists, emphasizing the importance of accurate and accessible voter rolls for fair elections.
The U.S. Department of Justice has been contacting multiple states, including swing, blue, and red states, demanding access to sensitive election and voter registration data as part of an effort to scrutinize voting laws and combat alleged illegal voting, raising concerns among voting rights advocates about the scope and purpose of these data requests.
The DOJ and the Trump administration are conducting broad efforts to collect voter data and inspect voting equipment in various states, raising concerns among election officials about federal overreach and potential interference in upcoming elections, especially with activities in Colorado and requests for voter rolls across multiple states.
The Republican National Committee has sued Michigan's Secretary of State, alleging that the state's voter rolls are inaccurate and in violation of federal law. The lawsuit comes after Trump allies took over the RNC's leadership and amid increased focus on voter roll maintenance by Republicans. Michigan's Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, has defended the state's efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls, while critics argue that the lawsuit is a baseless attempt to undermine confidence in the election system. The RNC's legal action coincides with the addition of two election lawyers to its team, signaling a continued emphasis on election law strategy within the GOP.
Conservative activists, fueled by doubts about the 2020 election, are targeting eligible voters in an effort to purge voter rolls ahead of the 2024 presidential election. These activists are scrutinizing state voter lists for registration errors to file voter challenges, which tend to affect minority or younger voters who are statistically more likely to vote Democrat. The challenges, often based on administrative errors and technical violations, have resulted in the removal of thousands of voters from the rolls. Critics argue that these challenges are meritless and disproportionately impact marginalized communities, while activists claim they are protecting the integrity of the voter rolls.
Conservative group Judicial Watch has joined Donald Trump and other election denial groups in attacking the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan consortium of over two dozen states that exchange voter registration data to ensure election security. The group released a flawed report alleging potential violations of federal law by ERIC, falsely slamming it as a “syndicate founded by leftists” and charging that it has been “far more effective at swelling voter registration rolls than at keeping them clean”. ERIC was started in 2012 by seven states, including four led by Republicans, and is the sole data-sharing program for states since there is no clearinghouse for voter registration.