Illinois election officials are weighing whether to comply with a demand from Republican President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to turn over by Sept. 1 the state’s full voter registration list, including voters’ birth dates, driver’s license numbers, signatures and partial Social Security numbers.
The Labor Day deadline, sent to Illinois State Board of Elections officials via email Thursday, marks an escalation of a conflict that’s been brewing between state and federal officials since the Civil Rights Division of Trump’s Justice Department in late July requested the voter data and a laundry list of other information on Illinois elections and voters.
The push for disclosure of Illinois voters’ sensitive personal information is part of a broader effort from the Trump administration to exert federal authority over state-run elections, including shifting the Civil Rights Division’s focus from ensuring access to the polls to combating the specter of voter fraud. Several other states, including neighboring Wisconsin, have received similar data requests this summer, while the Justice Department in recent months has filed lawsuits against election officials in North Carolina and Orange County, California, over issues related to their voter rolls.
A spokesman for the Illinois board said election officials intend to respond to the Justice Department’s latest demand by Sept. 2, the day after the Labor Day holiday.
During Trump’s first term, a so-called election integrity commission he established made a similar request, but the board never turned over the data.
Noting that Trump at the time “was intent on proving — despite no evidence — the false claim that he won the popular vote in 2016,” Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said the president and current Attorney General Pam Bondi “need to abandon their attempts to capture detailed personal data about every voter in Illinois in order to suppress the vote.”
“We know that this administration sees data as a cudgel to harass and punish individuals and they will use the Illinois voter data in this misguided way as well,” Yohnka said in an emailed statement. “Worse still, they are using the awesome power of the federal government to bring voter suppression to our state — a state with a proud history of expanding access to the ballot box. The DOJ should drop this demand.”
So far, the Justice Department “hasn’t explained why it wants this sensitive … voter data, what it will do with it, and how it will protect it,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former voting rights attorney at the department, wrote Friday in an email to the Tribune.
“Congress has not authorized the DOJ to collect highly sensitive information on American registered voters, such as drivers license numbers, Social Security numbers, or dates of birth,” Becker wrote. “That data is strongly protected under state laws as states led by both parties have informed the DOJ. Further, it’s likely that DOJ has failed to comply with Congressional requirements for federal collection of data, under laws like the Privacy Act.”
In the three-page letter from the Justice Department on Aug. 14 requesting the more extensive voter information amid privacy concerns of Illinois officials, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon three times repeated the sentence that “Any statewide prohibitions are clearly preempted by federal law.”
Dhillon also cited a provision of the federal Civil Rights Act, saying “to the extent there are privacy concerns, the voter registration list is subject to federal privacy protections.” But that section of the federal law allows the department to pass along personal information to “Congress and any committee thereof” and other “governmental agencies.”
In response to the initial letter Illinois election officials received July 28 requesting information under the National Voter Registration Act, the state board earlier this month turned over its full voter file, the same list state law makes available to registered political committees and government entities. That list doesn’t include the sensitive personal information federal officials sought.
In its Aug. 11 response, the elections board also asked the Justice Department to give the state until Sept. 10 to reply to the rest of its request. Three days later, the department wrote back, demanding the full list with all the sensitive information, asserting the agency is entitled to the data “to ascertain Illinois’s compliance with the list maintenance requirements” under federal voter registration laws.
Writing back Thursday, the state board said it needed until Sept. 10 to review the Justice Department’s legal justifications.
“As your letter cites to numerous federal statutes, it is necessary for the board to thoroughly research that authority in order to determine what data can be lawfully provided and whether an intergovernmental agreement to provide that data may be necessary,” wrote the election board’s general counsel, Marni Malowitz. “Given the importance of Illinois voters’ interest in protecting their confidential personally identifiable information, the board must ensure that it is complying with all state and federal laws.”
Michael Gates, the deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division who sent the initial letter, fired back in an email that “a 3-week extension is not reasonable.”
“The electronic form of Illinois’s Voter Registration List already exists and can be easily transmitted to the Justice Department by following the instructions in our letter,” Gates wrote, setting the Sept. 1 deadline.
Gates’ role at Justice and his involvement in the data dispute with Illinois election officials underscore the rightward shift in the department’s approach to enforcing voting laws.
Gates was the city attorney for Huntington Beach, California, in GOP-dominated Orange County, where he regularly engaged in legal battles against the state’s top Democrats. His imposition of a city-required voter ID law prompted a state law saying no such requirement was needed to vote. He also sued the state to challenge California’s “sanctuary” protections for immigrants.
