Secretaries of state ask DOJ to clarify how it’s using their voter data
After receiving letters from the Department of Justice requesting access to state voter data, 10 Democratic secretaries of state on Tuesday drafted their own letter, citing “immense concern” with how that data might have been shared across the federal government.
The secretaries write that in recent meetings with DOJ and Department of Homeland Security officials they received “misleading and at times contradictory information” on the topic of their unredacted statewide voter rolls, which can include information like driver’s license numbers, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and birth dates.
The letter, addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, flags an Aug. 28 call with Michael Gates, who was deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division until he stepped down this month. Gates, the secretaries wrote, assured them that the DOJ would protect the voter information in compliance with the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act.
Heather Honey, an election conspiracy theorist turned senior DHS official, said in a Sept. 11 meeting that DHS had not received the voter data, nor did it intend to use it. The same day, DHS contradicted Honey in saying that it would use the data to fuel the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, a database previously used by naturalized citizens to seek benefits that is being repurposed to find instances of voter fraud.
“We are deeply concerned about the inconsistent and misleading information that Secretaries have received from the DOJ and DHS and with the potential lack of compliance with federal law,” the secretaries’ letter reads.
The letter includes a list of questions for the federal agency heads, starting with whether the DOJ has shared voter data with DHS or other agencies. They also seek answers on the systems of record used to track maintenance of voter data and, if information was shared with other federal agencies, “why was this not communicated directly to the election officials?”
