Trump Administration Sued Over Voter Data Collection From 47 States
The League of Women Voters, EPIC and LULAC allege Homeland Security obtained voter files from at least 47 states and plans to combine them with commercial data, violating federal law. The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., comes less than three weeks before Election Day and follows repeated court rejections of federal demands for state voter information.
The Trump administration is facing a federal lawsuit over its collection and analysis of sensitive voter data from across the country. The complaint, filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that the Department of Homeland Security has obtained voter files from at least 47 states and handled the information in ways that violate federal law.
The suit was brought by the League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the League of United Latin American Citizens. It argues that DHS's secretive probe of voter data, which includes a policy of combining that information with commercial datasets, ignores federal safeguards and the privacy rights of millions of Americans.
The complaint asks the court to declare the administration's collection of voter data illegal, block the DHS policy and order the agency to delete and stop using the voter information it has already obtained. The case is the latest legal challenge to President Donald Trump's efforts to combat noncitizen voting, an issue he has repeatedly argued poses a serious threat to election integrity. Studies and prosecutions, however, have found documented instances of noncitizens casting ballots to be rare.
The administration has sought a greater federal role in voter eligibility and election administration, areas traditionally overseen primarily by states under the Constitution and federal law. Federal courts have repeatedly rejected its efforts to compel states to turn over voter information. According to the new lawsuit, the administration has obtained and processed voter records from at least 47 states, even though officials in 30 states had previously refused federal demands to hand over voter information.
The legal action comes less than three weeks before Election Day, as the administration continues to pressure states it says are not doing enough to purge noncitizens from their voter rolls. On the same day the lawsuit was filed, the administration sued California election officials, arguing they failed to act quickly enough to review names the federal government identified as «likely» noncitizens.
The Justice Department asked a judge to block the state from counting mail-in ballots from those individuals unless their eligibility can be confirmed. The California secretary of state's office said it was given only 48 hours to review roughly 20,000 names and said the federal government had not provided the underlying evidence or methodology supporting its claims.
The Justice Department's lawsuit, however, says U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducted a «multiagency and multilevel review» and determined with «high confidence» that roughly 20,000 people on California's voter rolls were likely noncitizens. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute reflects a broader conflict over the balance between federal election oversight and state authority, and over how voter data may be used. The lawsuit also raises questions about privacy protections for the personal information of millions of registered voters as the administration expands its election integrity efforts.
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