There was widespread outrage after the attorney general, Pam Bondi, pushed for access to Minnesota’s voter rolls as the state reeled from the killing of Alex Pretti over the weekend.
Bondi included the demand for voter rolls in a letter she sent to the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, on Saturday urging him to “change course” in the state. In addition to turning over the voter rolls, Bondi also said the state should turn over data on those receiving public assistance and repeal sanctuary city policies in the state.
The request for voter rolls stood out because it has nothing to do with immigration enforcement – the Trump administration has not presented evidence of widespread voter fraud by non-citizens in Minnesota or elsewhere. In a court hearing on Monday as part of a request to end the surging federal immigration enforcement presence in Minnesota, an attorney representing the state described Bondi’s request as a “ransom note”.
Minnesota is one of nearly two dozen states the justice department is suing for its full, unredacted voter file, including partial social security numbers, full dates of birth and driver’s license numbers. Experts say the legal rationale behind the suits is flimsy and it is a thinly veiled effort to sow doubt about the administration of elections ahead of the midterm elections.
“The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no. Her letter is an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of US citizens in violation of state and federal law,” Steve Simon, Minnesota’s top election official, said in a statement on Sunday. Simon added his office had already offered to turn over information in the voter file, but that request was rejected.
“Without alleging any wrongdoing by Minnesota, the DoJ continues to demand that we disclose private data such as social security and drivers’ license information” he added.
The justice department has not said exactly what it plans to do with the voter rolls. It is widely believed one purpose will be to share it with the Department of Homeland Security so that officials can run it through an upgraded database to identify non-citizens on the rolls. A handful of Republican-led states that have voluntarily run their voter rolls through the database have come up with very few examples of non-citizens being registered.
Bondi’s letter and the broader request for voter information is part of a “shakedown”, said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of States United Democracy Center, a non-profit organization that works on election issues.
“Trump wants that state voter data so that he has the ability to interfere with the upcoming midterm elections,” she said on Monday.
Adrian Fontes, the top election official in Arizona, where the justice department is also suing to get wide-ranging personal information, said in a video posted on X that the request was “disturbing” and that the department was “basically trying to blackmail” Minnesota.
“What do voter rolls have to do with ICE? Nothing. But they have a lot to do with the administration’s ongoing efforts to meddle in elections,” Wendy Weiser, vice-president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, a thinktank, posted on X. “The administration may not threaten ICE deployment to pressure states to cooperate with its improper efforts to interfere in elections.”
The US constitution gives states, not the federal government, the power to run elections and there is no national voter file in the United States. Nonetheless, the justice department has said it is entitled to the information under federal laws that require states to make a “reasonable effort” to keep voters who have moved or died off the rolls. It also says it is trying to ensure compliance with a 2002 law that requires states to check the eligibility of voters when they register as well as the 1960 Civil Rights Act, which requires states to turn over voting records to the attorney general when they produce a request with a valid “statement and purpose”.
But a federal judge in California earlier this month dismissed those arguments and dismissed the justice department’s efforts to get sweeping personal information on voters there.
Describing the department’s rationale as “pretextual”, US district judge David Carter said the Trump administration appeared to be focused on “comprehensive data collection”.
“The centralization of this information by the federal government would have a chilling effect on voter registration which would inevitably lead to decreasing voter turnout as voters fear that their information is being used for some inappropriate or unlawful purpose,” Carter, an appointee of Bill Clinton, wrote in his opinion. “This risk threatens the right to vote which is the cornerstone of American democracy.”
A federal judge in Oregon has also indicated he is likely to dismiss a similar justice department lawsuit there. Noting Bondi’s letter to Minnesota over the weekend, the judge overseeing that case asked justice department attorneys to appear for a briefing on Monday to explain how it affected the request for Oregon records. A judge in Georgia dismissed the department’s lawsuit for voter information there last week, saying lawyers had filed it in the wrong part of the state.
