The Trump administration is facing a federal lawsuit over allegations that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unlawfully gathered and analyzed sensitive voter registration files from at least 47 states.
The legal action, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., was brought by a coalition of privacy and voting advocacy organizations, including the League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
Allegations of Federal Privacy Violations
According to the complaint, DHS conducted a secretive probe that obtained voter records and paired them with commercial datasets. Plaintiffs allege that this process disregards federal safeguards and infringes upon the constitutional privacy rights of millions of registered American voters.
The lawsuit asks the federal court to:
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- Declare the administration’s voter data acquisition and processing illegal.
- Block DHS from continuing the data collection policy.
- Order the immediate deletion of all state voter records already obtained by the agency.
Federal Push vs. State Authority
The lawsuit arrives amid broader disputes over federal oversight of election administration, a role predominantly reserved for the states under the U.S. Constitution. Although election officials in roughly 30 states had previously declined federal demands to supply voter files, the complaint alleges the administration managed to secure data from nearly every state.
The administration has maintained that heightened federal scrutiny is vital to prevent noncitizen voting. However, historical studies and prosecutions show that noncitizen voting in U.S. elections remains extremely rare.
The legal challenge also follows a separate federal lawsuit filed Thursday against California election officials. In that case, the Justice Department claimed California failed to rapidly purge roughly 20,000 flagged individuals from voter rolls, while state officials criticized the federal government for providing a tight 48-hour window without sharing supporting data or methodology.