Protecting voter privacy and the integrity of U.S. elections

https://protectdemocracy.org/work/protecting-voter-privacy-and-the-integrity-of-u-s-elections/

Publish Date: 2026-06-11 16:15:00

Protect Democracy and co-counsel represent Common Cause and four individual voters in a lawsuit to stop the Department of Justice (DOJ) from building an unprecedented national voter database. The DOJ plans to use this database to seize control of voter list maintenance from the states, pressure states into purging voters based on unreliable SAVE system matches, and to baselessly undermine trust in the integrity of our elections.

Protect Democracy is fighting back by safeguarding Americans’ privacy and defending the electoral process from unlawful federal interference.

Co-counsel

Background

Over the past year, the DOJ has demanded full unredacted voter rolls from at least 49 states and Washington, D.C. These records vary by states but include sensitive personal data such as home addresses, partial social security numbers, drivers’ license numbers, and voting participation history. The agency intends to compare state voter list data with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) notoriously inaccurate Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system in an effort to identify suspected noncitizens on state voter rolls. But the SAVE system has repeatedly and mistakenly flagged lawful U.S. citizens as ineligible to vote.

Nevertheless, the DOJ is claiming unprecedented authority to demand that states remove any flagged voters within 45 days of informing states. DOJ also intends to share these state voter rolls with unnamed third party contractors for reasons that remain unclear. No law gives the DOJ the authority to conduct this kind of list maintenance activity, which Congress has specifically and exclusively assigned to states.

At least 18 states (including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming) have complied with the DOJ’s demands for their…

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