Civil liberties and voter-advocacy organizations have filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security, challenging what their lawsuit characterizes as an unauthorized and opaque data-gathering operation aimed at building a database of voter registration records to identify noncitizens.
Those organizations are seeking an end to the data collection, removal of any records already gathered, and a bar on DHS making use of that information. The plaintiffs argued that the Privacy Act constrains the government's data-gathering authority, and that federal transparency rules required DHS to publish a Federal Register notice before establishing any new records system — a step the department reportedly took without public disclosure.
According to the filing, disclosures tied to unrelated court proceedings have functioned as the sole avenue through which the public has learned how DHS acquires voter records from millions of Americans and what the agency subsequently does with that information.
According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, an internal Homeland Security Investigations report dated June noted that the agency had collected upward of 50 million voter records, with collection efforts concentrated in California, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia. According to the same document, Heather Honey — serving at the time as DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary — accessed a database of more than 48 million individual records.
According to a statement released by Democracy Forward, one of the organizations behind the lawsuit, federal immigration authorities have gathered and processed voter registration data that may contain an array of protected personal details — among them Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, birth dates, home addresses, voting histories, and party affiliations. Those groups have indicated that the agency combined electoral registration data with records purchased from commercial data brokers, building out a wider set of personal details linked to individuals throughout the country.
Celina Stewart, chief executive of the League of Women Voters, argued in a written statement that harvesting voters' personal information without their awareness and directing it into immigration enforcement — under the banner of election security — amounted to an overreach of federal power, while the Department of Homeland Security left unanswered questions about whether such voter records are kept on file.
On Thursday, the Justice Department took legal action against California after the state chose not to place holds on ballots submitted by approximately 20,000 individuals whom the administration had identified as potentially lacking citizenship. The lawsuit's filing noted that federal immigration agencies regularly check voter registration data against citizenship records to find any noncitizens listed on federal election rolls, and that California's voter registration database is available for purchase by outside parties.
