Not a single federal judge has granted Donald Trump’s administration access to voter files in any of the 30 states where the Department of Justice is fighting a legal battle for sensitive data for millions of Americans.
After 23 straight losses in court, the Justice Department is now sending threatening letters to election officials, warning states that they are “currently under investigation” and subject to “ongoing litigation” for access to records related to the 2024 election.
That was news to Utah’s Republican Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson.
“Um, no, I was not aware, but I guess I am now,” she wrote on social media Wednesday, along with a copy of a letter from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “It would be nice if the good folks at the DOJ would focus on actual problems instead of baselessly harassing election officials.”
Nevada’s Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar received a similar letter, which was in reference to the “Maintenance of All Election Records in Your Possession as Chief Election Officer During Pending Litigation.” He called the letter a “pretty direct threat.”
open image in gallery“They’re just using this as an opportunity to intimidate us, and I’m not going to fold in any way,” he told The Nevada Independent.
Similar letters were sent to more than two dozen other state election officials as the Trump administration wages a government-wide effort to assume federal control of the nation’s elections and restrict ballot access for tens of thousands of voters.
It’s unclear what, exactly, the Justice Department is investigating.
The letters don’t point to any criminal statutes or make any specific allegations of wrongdoing, but the pressure campaign follows the Trump administration’s efforts to identify alleged fraud in the nation’s elections, which the president baselessly insists are being manipulated by noncitizen voters and Democratic officials.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon said her office sent the letters to “states that refused to comply with federal law” and have not provided her with voter registration lists.
“We sent the letter to ensure these states do not destroy election records related to our ongoing lawsuits,” she wrote Thursday. “This is standard litigation practice, not a ‘threat.’ We appreciate all states that cooperated with our data requests!”
open image in galleryThe letter says the Justice Department is enforcing election rules under the Civil Rights Act, but judges have repeatedly decided that the federal government does not have permission to vacuum up state data. The Justice Department has been seeking access to unredacted voter registration databases that contain sensitive information for virtually every voter in the U.S., including driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers.
The Civil Rights Act requires state election officials to preserve all voting records for 22 months after an election, which expired last week for the 2024 general election. But the Justice Department argues that the information must be retained while states are under litigation.
“Your failure to preserve relevant data may constitute spoliation of evidence, which may subject you to civil and criminal sanctions,” the letter says.
“It’s just one thing after another,” Henderson told The Salt Lake Tribune.
“Running elections is a lot of work, it’s very complicated, and it’s not something you can just pivot from all the time,” she said. “All of the things that have happened have been just way outside the scope of my imagination. Never expected to have the federal government insert themselves to this degree.”
open image in galleryIf the Justice Department truly cared about election security, “you would not be threatening election officials with prison sentences, you would not be suing all of us, you would not be investigating all of us constantly,” Henderson added. “You would not be making it so that we’re not able to do our actual jobs.”
Election law expert David Becker with the Center for Election Innovation and Research said the letters appear to be “completely meaningless.”
“There’s only two reasons to send that letter: Either the lawyers who send it don’t understand litigation obligations, or they’re hoping that states will misinterpret it and retain more than they’re legally required,” he told The New York Times.
Despite losing every legal battle for voter data so far, the Justice Department continues to appeal orders against it.
The government announced Wednesday that it is appealing a West Virginia ruling after losing a case against the state’s Republican Secretary of State Kris Warner.
In his July order tossing the case, District Judge Thomas Johnson, who was appointed by George W. Bush, appeared frustrated by the wave of lawsuits filed by the government.
“Given the lack of an adequate basis or purpose, one is left to wonder what the real purpose was for the Justice Department to go to the trouble of filing civil actions like this one all around the nation,” he wrote. “Troubling though this question is, it is not before the Court at this time.”