Even red states are defiantly rejecting DOJ’s demands for private voter data

Earlier this week, Idaho became the latest state to push back against the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) campaign to seize the private voter data of every state. 

In a Feb. 26 letter, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (R) rejected the department’s demand to fork over his state’s unredacted voter roll, citing the Trump administration’s recent court losses on the issue. 

“At this point, three federal district courts have dismissed Department lawsuits seeking to compel production of an unredacted statewide voter registration list, concluding that neither HAVA, the NVRA, nor Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 authorize the Department to require disclosure of a state’s full voter registration list on request,” McGrane wrote. “This indicates that the Department lacks a legal basis to demand personal information otherwise protected under Idaho law.”

McGrane also cited privacy concerns, and even pointed out that noncitizen voting is virtually nonexistent. 

Idaho is far from the first red state to tell the DOJ to kick rocks in response to its demand to hand over personal voter data.

Since the push began in May, the overwhelming majority of states have held firm and refused the department’s demands. Most have been blue states, but a growing number of red ones are joining them — a stark sign that the DOJ’s effort is galvanizing opposition even among some supporters of President Donald Trump.

Twelve states, all GOP-led, have complied with DOJ’s request.

Idaho’s response came just a few weeks after West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner (R) — a strong Trump supporter — struck a similarly defiant tone.

“State law is clear: voter lists are available in a redacted format from my office, but I’ll not be turning over any West Virginian’s protected information,” Warner said. “We have offered to work cooperatively with the federal government to maintain the continuity of elections nationwide, but the DOJ doesn’t have authority to run a state’s elections. I support efforts to strengthen election integrity, but I will not break the law, give up our State’s rights, or compromise the privacy of our citizens.”

Shortly after, the department sued the Mountain State, along with four others: Kentucky, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Utah. All but New Jersey are led by Republican election chiefs. 

“Bring it on!,” a Warner spokesperson said in response to the lawsuit. “The federal government is not going to get any personal information on West Virginia voters as long as Kris Warner is Secretary of State.”

At least eight states led by GOP election chiefs have so far refused the DOJ’s demands to hand over its unredacted voter rolls. State election chiefs from both parties are aligned in their concern over why the Trump administration wants state voter data — and what it ultimately plans to do with it. 

“Election officials across the political spectrum stood up to protect state sovereignty and voters’ security, regardless of partisanship,” David Becker, the executive director of Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney, told Democracy Docket. 

GOP election chiefs have also cited concerns about how the federal government handles sensitive personal data as a main reason for not complying with the DOJ. 

“Personally identifiable information from federal systems has been transmitted outside approved channels, resulting in submission of sensitive personal information, including social security numbers, to unauthorized persons,” McGrane wrote in his letter to Neff. “That development reinforces the importance of careful stewardship of sensitive voter information.”

Dax Goldstein, senior counsel and election protection program director at the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center, told Democracy Docket that McGrane’s response to DOJ echoes privacy and legal concerns shared among Democratic and Republican election chiefs.

“We’ve known from the start that the federal government’s voter-data pressure campaign is a power grab and a fishing expedition,” Goldstein said. “States on both sides of the aisle took a measured approach, following their state laws to protect their voters, and now we’ve seen the courts begin to confirm they were right. State election officials have expressed concern about the legality of the demands and how the data will be used and protected. And that’s an appropriate level of caution when being pressed to share an unprecedented amount of sensitive, private voter data.”

McGrane’s letter also pushed back on one of the main claims for the DOJ’s hunt for private voter data: to ensure that noncitizens aren’t voting en masse in federal elections. McGrane said that Idaho conducted a statewide citizenship verification effort ahead of the 2024 election using driver’s license records and the federal SAVE immigration database — which has been repeatedly criticized for inaccurately flagging U.S. citizens as noncitizens.

McGrane noted that the review resulted in only 11 cases of potential noncitizens registering to vote being referred to federal prosecutors — but none of those cases involved individuals who actually voted in Idaho’s 2024 elections.

The defiance from some red states is especially stark when compared to the GOP-led states that have acquiesced to the DOJ’s demands without protest. 

Earlier this month, Ohio became one of a dozen states to willingly hand over its full, unredacted voter roll to the DOJ. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) said in a letter to the department that he had no concerns about what it will do with his voters’ private data.

“[I]t is our understanding that all federal data-privacy laws, including, but not limited to, the Privacy Act of 1974… and [the Civil Rights Act]… will be strictly followed,” LaRose wrote. “Consistent with this understanding, I have approved the secure transfer of the requested data.”