Civil rights groups ask court to protect Fulton County voter data seized by FBI

A group of civil rights organizations including the NAACP and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have asked a federal court to protect voters’ personal information after the FBI seized ballots and other election materials during a raid on a Fulton County, Georgia election hub last month.

The raid was part of a criminal probe into the results of the 2020 presidential election, which President Donald Trump falsely claims was stolen from him. Unsealed court records indicate that the probe is based upon long-debunked conspiracy theories pushed by far-right anti-voting activists, some of whom are now members of the Trump administration.

In their emergency motion, the civil rights organizations asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to ensure that the seized materials are used solely for the federal government’s stated criminal investigation — and not to purge voters from the state rolls, improperly disclose voters’ personal data or to otherwise intimidate them.

The groups also asked the court to expressly ban the federal government from copying or reproducing the records.

“We are witnessing a broadscale assault on fair elections on many fronts, from going after voting records and squeezing out Black voters through redistricting, to improperly purging voters from the rolls and making it harder for everyone to vote,” Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee, said in a statement. 

“Some have called what we are witnessing a ‘soft coup’. Whatever we call it, we must all understand that our democracy is at risk,” he added.

In a memorandum supporting the emergency motion, the civil rights organizations argued that the politics behind the Fulton County raid raise serious concerns for voters’ personal information.

The Department of Justice (DOJ), which now controls that data, “answers to a President committed to proving flat-earth theories that he won the 2020 election, increasing actual and perceived risks that the seized data will be improperly used and disseminated,” they wrote. 

Fulton County officials have warned that the FBI’s raid and criminal investigation are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to strip state and local administrators of the authority to manage elections.

“If they’re successful here in Fulton County, in taking over our election, it’s going to spread,” Robb Pitts, the chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said last week.

In recent months, the DOJ has sued 23 states and the District of Columbia in a bid to gain access to voters’ unredacted personal information, part of the Trump administration’s national attempt to seize control of elections. The U.S. Constitution grants authority over elections to the states, not the president.

So far, courts in Oregon, Michigan and California have rejected those suits in a series of bruising setbacks for the administration.