In the last week In a hearing on the Trump administration’s efforts to access Rhode Island, the state’s unredacted voter rolls, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy asked a Justice Department lawyer what the agency was doing with voter roll data. Already collected from other states in recent months.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” he said Eric Neffacting chief of the agency’s Voting Section, a core part of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division that focuses on enforcing federal laws protecting the right to vote. Neff added that data the DOJ collected from states — which can include Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, dates of birth and addresses — is being kept separate.
“The United States is taking extra care to ensure that we are complying with the Privacy Act in every conceivable way,” Neff added. Privacy Act 1974 Regulates How government agencies collect and use personally identifiable information about US residents.
But Neff wasn’t telling the truth: The DOJ, he later admitted, was collecting the data and already analyzing it to identify voting irregularities.
In a court document Filed March 27.Neff backtracked on his claims. “The United States represented that each data set was stored separately,” Neff wrote. “The United States also stated that no analysis has yet been performed on the data. To correct and clarify the record, a preliminary internal data analysis of non-public voter registration data has begun. Specifically, the Civil Rights Division has begun the process of identifying and quantifying the number and type of registered voters and electors in each state.”
The disclosure confirms what had been widely speculated that the DOJ was collecting the data and using it to identify potential problems with suspected voting irregularities ahead of the midterms, a core part of Trump’s broader attack on the election.
Neff and the DOJ did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Critics are raising concerns about the DOJ’s voting section, which has undergone a complete overhaul since President Donald Trump took office. A newly installed coterie of inexperienced but Fiercely loyal lawyers in the DOJ’s Voting Sectionof which there are many. supported Election denial Conspiracy theorieshas spent its time forcing states to hand over their voter roll information.
The initiative began in May last year, when the Department of Justice sent letters to election officials. At least 48 states. and Washington, DC, asking for unredacted voter rolls. Some Republican-led states immediately handed over the information, but dozens of others held back. As a result, Neff and his colleagues have sued 30 states, asking the courts to compel them to hand over the information. So far, the courts have sided with the states, with judges already dismissing the cases. California, Michiganand Oregon.
In many cases, state election officials have identified major security risks in sharing such sensitive data, especially when it was unclear how the data would be stored or with whom it would be shared. “We still have no idea what the government is doing with this data,” says David Baker, head of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a former Justice Department lawyer. “It’s not known where it’s being stored, how it’s being stored, or who has access to it. This data is incredibly sensitive. If someone has those three data points on any of us, a Social Security number, a driver’s license number, or a date of birth, they can destroy us financially. That’s why states protect this data, and they do a good job of it.”