Padilla, Durbin, Colleagues Urge Trump’s Justice Department to Cease Pressure Campaign to Obtain States’ Sensitive Voter Data, Purge Voter Rolls

Senators raise alarm on Attorney General Bondi’s attempt to coerce Minnesota Governor Walz into relinquishing the state’s voter registration list as a condition for the removal of ICE and CBP from Minneapolis following the rejection of DOJ’s lawsuits in two other states

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led 26 Senate colleagues in pushing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop its unlawful pressure campaign to coerce dozens of states into providing the Trump Administration their voter rolls, which include voters’ personally identifiable information. Despite lacking legal authority, DOJ has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C. for refusing to hand over their full voter registration lists. The Senators sounded the alarm that the Administration’s efforts risk unjustified voter roll purges, pose severe privacy and national security concerns, and subvert state and local election officials’ authority to maintain registration lists.

The letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi comes after she recently wrote to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz pushing him to surrender the state’s voter rolls as part of an exchange for the Administration calling off its dangerous deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and agents to Minneapolis, an operation that has already led to the unjustified killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. That letter followed two recent federal court rulings rejecting DOJ’s voter roll lawsuits in California and Oregon.

After DOJ ignored a previous inquiry led by Senators Padilla and Durbin into the Administration’s efforts to amass state voter data and initial lawsuits against eight states, including California, the Senators demanded DOJ provide responses to their earlier queries, along with new questions on its continued pursuit of state voter rolls in the face of two federal court rulings rejecting its litigation and regarding the safeguards in place for handling the information it already has from millions of voters. The Senators also requested a briefing to the Senate Judiciary and Rules and Administration Committees, as well as Senators whose states have been sued by DOJ.

The Attorney General’s letter to Governor Walz “marked an unacceptable escalation of DOJ’s campaign to centralize state voter rolls and sensitive personal information under its control,” wrote the Senators. “It is also the clearest admission that the Department knows it lacks authority to obtain state voter rolls and is instead resorting to strong arm tactics and intimidation by force.”

“While most states are resisting this illegal voter roll grab, we are gravely concerned by the amount of sensitive data the Department has already amassed on millions of American voters,” continued the Senators. “The Department has failed to provide Congress, or the public, any information on how it is maintaining this vast amount of data, the guardrails in place to protect state voter information, how the data is to be used, or who in the federal government has access to this sensitive data.”

The Senators highlighted President Trump’s baseless claims of federal authority over elections, standing in stark contrast to American federalism and the Constitution, which outline clear roles for states and Congress but none for the Executive Branch. Trump erroneously claimed in a Truth Social post that “states are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”

Two weeks ago, federal judges in California and Oregon held that those states were not required to provide DOJ with unredacted copies of their voter registration lists. The court in California warned that “DOJ’s campaign to collect sensitive voter data … paints an alarming picture regarding the centralization of Americans’ information within the Executive Branch — without approval from Congress or Americans themselves.” The Senators pushed Attorney General Bondi to stop wasting taxpayer dollars through DOJ’s unchecked mass litigation pressure campaign that jeopardizes data privacy and could lead to voter purges.

Despite the Administration’s claims, voting by noncitizens is extremely rare, made even clearer by a review of Texas’ voter registration list of more than 18 million voters through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. The review flagged only 33 people — 0.000001% of registered voters — as potentially having voted illegally in the 2024 election.

As DOJ has sharply increased its possession of voter registrations and data, including from Texas and at least seven other states who have already relinquished their complete voter registration lists, the Senators stressed that recent changes to and the expanded use of the insufficiently tested SAVE program could lead to some individuals mistakenly being flagged as noncitizens, threatening their right to vote. DOJ’s pressure campaign, in collaboration with outside election denier groups, to coerce state voter registration lists and run them through the SAVE program has already led to issues. Last month, 70 county clerks in Missouri sent a letter to state House and Senate leadership underscoring that the flawed SAVE program has erroneously flagged individuals known by the county clerks to be U.S. citizens, including voters that the clerks personally registered at naturalization ceremonies.

In addition to Padilla and Durbin, the letter to Attorney General Bondi was also signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Senator Padilla has led the charge in opposing the Trump Administration’s thinly veiled attempts to purge voter rolls and investigate unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. In addition to his previous letter with Senator Durbin condemning the Administration’s potential voter purges, Padilla, Senator Peters, and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) strongly opposed the reckless expansion of the SAVE program. Padilla and Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio-03) also announced the Voter Purge Protection Act last year to prevent the Trump Administration’s ongoing voter purge efforts, including by prohibiting the removal of individuals from the voter rolls due to changes in residence or not voting in previous elections. Additionally, Padilla recently delivered remarks on the Senate floor sounding the alarm on the Trump Administration’s repeated attacks to undermine future elections.

Last October, Padilla and Senator Peters filed an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit opposing the Trump Administration’s illegal ongoing attempts to purge state voter rolls across the country by developing a massive interagency database of Americans’ sensitive personal data. In September, Padilla condemned DOJ’s lawsuits against states for seeking to protect their sensitive voter information.

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

Dear Attorney General Bondi:

We write to urge the Department of Justice (the Department or DOJ) to stop its intensifying pressure campaign to coerce states into handing over their voter rolls, which include voters’ personally identifiable information (PII), in apparent violation of federal law. We strongly oppose the Department’s lawsuits against states, which are unauthorized attempts to centralize this data, that in addition to posing serious risks to voter privacy, data security, and national security, also invite unwarranted voter roll purges and undermine state and local election officials’ list maintenance efforts.

The unauthorized nature of these lawsuits was exposed by your January 24 letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz seeking voter rolls as a condition to ending the dangerous recent deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to the state that has cost two innocent Americans their lives. This letter marked an unacceptable escalation of DOJ’s campaign to centralize state voter rolls and sensitive personal information under its control. It is also the clearest admission that the Department knows it lacks authority to obtain state voter rolls and is instead resorting to strong arm tactics and intimidation by force. The whole country now sees this pursuit of state voter rolls for what it is, nothing more than an “apparent ransom.” 

The Department should immediately schedule a briefing for relevant Senate offices and Committees and provide thorough written responses to previous questions from Congress about these activities. In light of the Department’s continued pursuit of state voter rolls, the millions of voters’ information it already has, and two federal court rulings rejecting its litigation, we raise further questions below.

Since early November 2025, the Department has sued an additional 16 states and the District of Columbia for failure to produce their full voter registration lists upon request, bringing the total number of states targeted by lawsuits to 24. DOJ lacks legal authority to compel states to turn over possession of their voter registration lists. Meanwhile, President Trump has made the Administration’s policy very clear, asserting, falsely:

“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.” [emphasis in original]

This statement, by a President who openly directs the Department’s activities, is a chilling assertion of illegal power that is completely at odds with federalism and our constitutional structure, which provides explicit roles for states and Congress but none for the Executive Branch.

On January 14 and 15, 2026, two federal judges in Oregon and California, respectively, clearly rejected two of DOJ’s voter roll lawsuits. In dismissing DOJ’s case against California for its voter rolls, the court stated, “[w]hile the DOJ has told this Court that its purpose for demanding the sensitive voter information of Californians is ‘voter roll maintenance enforcement and compliance,’ representations made by the DOJ elsewhere paint a starkly different picture that this Court cannot ignore.” The judge went on to discuss various statements by DOJ officials that led him to conclude that “the DOJ’s campaign to collect sensitive voter data . . . paints an alarming picture regarding the centralization of Americans’ information within the Executive Branch — without approval from Congress or Americans themselves.” The Department should take heed of those rulings and cease this litigation campaign that poses serious risks to voters’ data privacy, risks unwarranted voter purges, and will waste millions of federal and state taxpayer funds if it continues unchecked. The California court, in particular, correctly recognized that the Civil Rights Act of 1960’s Title III disclosure requirements on which the Department relies in these lawsuits were passed to end state policies that prevented Black Americans from voting. Thus, the Department may not use them as a blank check to amass any election data it wants – especially when the effect of that data collection could prevent eligible Americans from voting.

While most states are resisting this illegal voter roll grab, we are gravely concerned by the amount of sensitive data the Department has already amassed on millions of American voters. The Department has failed to provide Congress, or the public, any information on how it is maintaining this vast amount of data, the guardrails in place to protect state voter information, how the data is to be used, or who in the federal government has access to this sensitive data. The quantity of data in DOJ’s possession has dramatically increased now that Texas has recently joined at least 7 other states who have handed over their complete lists of registered voters during this pressure campaign from President Trump and DOJ.  It bears noting that Texas already (and separately) processed its voter registration list, consisting of more than 18 million voters, through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. That review resulted in the referral of 33 people — 0.000001% of registered voters — to the Texas Attorney General as to whether they “may have” voted illegally in the 2024 election. Given recent changes to the SAVE program by DHS, we are concerned that individuals may be mistakenly identified as non-citizens by your activities and their voting rights undermined.

Without public transparency, it appears that DOJ is coordinating its voter roll acquisition campaign with DHS’s SAVE program along with outside election denier groups such as Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network. On November 18, ten states’ chief election officers wrote to you and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem seeking clarification on whether your agencies had “actively misled election officials regarding the uses of voter data,” so far with no response. Last month, 70 county clerks in Missouri sent a letter to state House and Senate leadership describing the SAVE program as flawed given that it has erroneously flagged individuals known by the county clerks to be U.S. citizens, including voters the clerks personally registered at naturalization ceremonies. Just last week, DOJ admitted in court pleadings that rogue DOGE employees at the Social Security Administration (SSA) entered into a secret agreement to share SSA data unlawfully with an outside group for election-related purposes. The Department owes Congress and the public an explanation of what it plans to do with state voter roll data in its possession and what safeguards are in place to prevent further unauthorized misuse.

As Senators representing states being sued by DOJ for their voters’ personal information, we request the Department provide complete answers to the questions posed in the November 6, 2025 letter from Senators Padilla and Durbin, along with the following additional questions:

(1) Has the Department, at any other point in history, ever sought to accumulate the voter registration lists for every state in unison, for any purpose?

(2) How many states’ voter registration lists does the Department currently have in its possession? Which states?

1. In what format were the state voter registration lists received by the Department? By what means were they transferred to the Department?
2. What information is included in the voter files received by the Department beyond voter name and address? Do the voter files include date of birth, full or partial Social Security Number, and/or full or partial driver’s license number? Do the voter files include information about past participation in elections or voters’ affiliation with political parties?
3. Do the voter files received by the Department include records with addresses withheld from the public, like records relating to peace officers, public officials, or victims of domestic violence?
4. For states that have not shared voter rolls, is DOJ reaching out to local officials to request the information? If yes, who are you reaching out to, and has anyone shared such information?

(3) What Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs), Computer Matching Agreements (CMAs) – or other arrangements not committed to memoranda form – currently exist between the Department and the states regarding the state voter registration lists?

1. Does the Department have any MOUs, MOAs, CMAs — or other arrangements not committed to memoranda form — with other federal agencies for the use of the lists?
2. If so, which ones and for which purposes?

(4) Has the Department shared the state voter registration lists, or information contained therein, with any contractors, outside groups or other state/federal agencies or components beyond the Civil Rights Division? If so, which ones, for which purposes? Please provide any relevant MOUs, MOAs, matching agreements, or similar agreements outlining the terms or processes for sharing such data with outside groups or other state/federal agencies or components within DOJ.

(5) Where are the state voter registration lists stored? If electronically stored, what format or form? What type of network access is there?

1. What safeguards are in place to ensure that voters’ social security number, address, date of birth, party affiliation and any other PII found in state voter registration lists in the Department’s possession remain private and uncompromised?
2. When will the data be destroyed? If not destroyed, how long will the data be retained? For what additional purposes?
3. Has the DOJ Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) been consulted on cybersecurity best practices for storing this data?
4. In compliance with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act and 44 U.S.C.A. § 3554(b) in particular, has the Department “develop[ed], document[ed], and implement[ed] an agency-wide information security program” based on the required risk assessment and consistent with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards and guidelines issued pursuant to 40 U.S.C. § 11331?
5. Has the DOJ Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties been consulted on your activities to ensure that Americans’ rights are not undermined?
6. What actions is DOJ taking to ensure that others who have access to voter data have effective, mandated cybersecurity and privacy measures in place?

(6) Who at the Department has access to the state voter registration lists? Please provide a list of components and offices with access, including but not limited to those within the Civil Rights Division.

(7) Is DOJ running the voter registration lists through the DHS SAVE program? If so, is DHS retaining the information in any databases? Is DOJ running the data through any other databases or systems at DOJ or any other federal agencies? If so, which ones?

1. Is DOJ flagging potential voters for review or removal from state voter registration lists?

(8) Given that federal courts have now confirmed DOJ’s failure to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974, has DOJ commenced an investigation into the criminal liability of employees associated with the effort to acquire the voter rolls?

The Department has a responsibility to respond to congressional correspondence and oversight requests in a timely manner. Due to the unprecedented nature of these actions by DOJ and the very real threat to the voting rights of millions of Americans voters, we seek written responses to these questions and those posed in the November 6, 2025 letter no later than February 11, 2026. In addition, we request a briefing on the Department’s activities regarding state voter rolls provided for Senate Rules and Judiciary Committees and Senators’ offices in states that are the subject of DOJ litigation on or before February 25, 2026.

Sincerely,