DOJ Is Sharing State Voter Roll Lists with Homeland Security
SAVE was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of Homeland Security, this spring refashioned it into a platform that can scan states’ voter rolls if officials upload the data.
In the past, SAVE could only search one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches, allowing officials to potentially feed into it information on millions of registered voters. SAVE checks that information against a series of federal databases and reports back whether it can verify someone’s immigration status.
Since May, it also can draw upon Social Security data, transforming the program into a tool that can confirm U.S. citizenship because Social Security records for many, but not all, Americans include the information.
As the Justice Department has sought state voter rolls this summer, letters from the department’s attorneys to state officials in many instances have demanded full lists of registered voters that include sensitive personal information such as driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. At least 22 states were asked for some data, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which is tracking the requests.
Some states have turned over publicly available voter files or offered directions on how to request them. Others have flat-out refused the requests.
“The Department of Justice hasn’t shown any good reason for its fishing expedition for sensitive voter information on every American,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said in a news release Monday announcing that her office had rejected the Justice Department’s second request for her state’s voter data.
Justin Levitt, who served as senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights in the Biden White House and is now a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, said that he has no confidence that Homeland Security would act carefully with any data received.
Levitt, speaking with Stateline on Wednesday before the data sharing was confirmed, voiced concern that the Justice Department was “serving as a stalking horse” for other entities within the government.
“The fact that they’re having to sneak through the back door rather than knocking on the front door tells you that there’s improper procedures going on,” Levitt said.
This story was updated to add information from Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales confirming his state shared voter roll information with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Jonathan Shorman covers democracy for Stateline, including elections, voting rights, fights over state vs. federal power, civil liberties and more. Indiana Capital Chronicle’s Whitney Downard contributed reporting. This story was updated to add information from Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales confirming his state shared voter roll information with the U.S. Department of Justice. The article originally appeared in Stateline. Stateline is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, with reporting from every capital.Stateline journalists aim to illuminate the big challenges and policy trends that cross state borders. You may subscribe to Stateline here.
