Overview
- Led by Colorado’s Jena Griswold, officials from nine other states sent a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem seeking explanations and set a Dec. 1 response deadline.
- The Justice Department has requested detailed voter-registration data from at least two dozen states and has sued multiple states that refused to provide the information.
- Secretaries recount an Aug. 28 briefing where DOJ said data would be used to assess HAVA and NVRA compliance, followed by a Sept. 11 exchange where a DHS official denied receiving voter data before DHS publicly confirmed planned use.
- DHS’s SAVE system was updated this year to allow bulk queries using names, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers, prompting concerns about accuracy, privacy and data security.
- Some states, including Colorado, provided public voter lists while others such as Oregon and Maine declined and were sued, as civil rights groups also challenge the SAVE changes in court over potential wrongful voter purges.