In an era of widespread digital data collection, many Americans accept that some portion of their personal data exists beyond their direct control. Against this backdrop, it may not be immediately apparent why the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s aggressive pursuit of state voter data, including the driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers of millions of Americans, is so troubling.

But the likely intent behind the DOJ’s pressure campaigns, litigation, and other tactics to demand data comes into focus in the context of a DOJ stacked with election deniers and under the sway of a president whose playbook includes baselessly claiming fraud to explain — or attempt to overturn — election results he dislikes.

These efforts — an unprecedented and unconstitutional incursion beyond the scope of the DOJ’s power — are laying the groundwork for three very dangerous outcomes: purges of eligible voters, election subversion in 2026, and the invasion of fundamental privacy rights. States should continue to be in control of their own voter data.

The DOJ power grab could kick eligible voters off the rolls

The DOJ is claiming authority under the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA) and Civil Rights Act of 1960 to try to seize state voter data. It is weaponizing laws that were passed to protect the vote in order to try to suppress it. While the NVRA and the Civil Rights Act do give the DOJ some limited authority to oversee states’ list maintenance procedures, as a federal court recently held, they do not give the DOJ the power to demand states’ full, unredacted voter rolls or to select voters to be kicked off the rolls.

The Constitution gives states the authority to run elections, not the federal government, and states have reliable processes to maintain voter rolls on an ongoing basis — bipartisan consensus agrees on this. Nevertheless, a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) sent to more than a dozen states would give the DOJ the power to handpick voters for removal, an unprecedented move that could give the agency boundless power beyond its scope, and leave hundreds or thousands of people disenfranchised. 

The draft MOU does not include any criteria for removal, which means that there are no rules around whom the DOJ might remove from voter rolls. It is not too far a stretch to imagine that the agency could target Democratic voters in key house districts. In fact, attempts by one of the candidates to disqualify eligible votes in North Carolina’s 2024 supreme court race were blatantly partisan. 

Given the administration’s frequent — and false — rhetoric about noncitizens voting, combined with recent efforts by DHS and DOGE to repurpose the unreliable SAVE tool to purportedly search states’ voter rolls for non-citizens, a likely scenario is that the DOJ will try to remove eligible voters due to match errors with their own unreliable SAVE data (again, watch for this in key house districts). Such removals, in addition to violating the NVRA’s prohibition on voter purges around elections, would force those who were disenfranchised to prove their citizenship on short notice, or lose their right to vote. 

Further, the Trump administration could use these removals as “evidence” that the voter rolls in certain states are not to be trusted, laying the groundwork to challenge the rightful winners of the midterms. This may sound far-fetched, but fearmongering about illegal voters in order to throw out the results of a free and fair election is right out of the election subversion playbook. 

DOJ’s effort is designed to subvert the 2026 election

The current DOJ is stacked with known election deniers, and the White House has frequently expressed public skepticism about the integrity of elections when the president or his allies lose. The DOJ’s goals, therefore, make even more sense as a rerun of the playbook that Trump and his allies ran in 2016, 2020 and 2024 — as groundwork for claims of fraud if midterm and future elections don’t go their way. First, they deceive the public, misleading people about the evidence they have, or misinterpreting the data to claim fraud. Then, they disrupt the elections by seizing voting machine or ballots, disregarding results, or intimidating voters at polling locations. And finally, they deny, pointing at the invented evidence they themselves have misled people about as a pretext to challenge or refute election results. 

The difference between these previous efforts and this new effort is that election deniers are now in power across the administration and are weaponizing their positions to lay the groundwork in advance. This only makes the risk of pervasive denialism more likely. 

DOJ’s voter data grab could violate the privacy of millions of people 

The DOJ’s draft MOU also suggests that personal voter data could be shared with external contractors. It’s unclear what credentials these contractors would be required to have, or what steps they might take to protect the data. This creates a whole suite of potential vulnerabilities, and that’s before we consider whether these contractors will even have the ability — or desire — to responsibly interpret the data they’re given. 

The current administration has recently admitted to sharing personal data, like sensitive Social Security data, with outside political groups seeking to overturn election results, and playing fast and loose with data security. 

The Privacy Act was passed to ensure the federal government does not collect information about Americans that it does not need and prevent the creation of an official or de facto consolidated database on Americans, in recognition of the threat to civil liberties and potential for abuse. The collection and aggregation of voter data the administration is pursuing not only compromises those protections, it would also make sensitive voter data newly vulnerable to cyberattacks from state or private actors.

There’s also a huge possibility for waste. Even if the data is kept secure, it’s possible that contractors given access to it won’t have the expertise required to understand what it’s saying, costing millions in taxpayer dollars and government time to produce very little. The track record of private contractors doing this kind of work is not very good. 

The DOJ should leave voter roll maintenance to the states

The changes the DOJ has proposed making to how states oversee their voter rolls are unlawful, dangerous, and have the potential to cause chaos in the leadup to and aftermath of the 2026 elections. Many safeguards exist to help states run elections freely and fairly, and they should be allowed to continue doing so with minimal interference, especially from a federal government with clear motives to corrupt the election in order to stay in power.