Did DOGE sign a ‘voter data agreement’ with election deniers True the Vote?

Late Update, 1/29/26: True the Vote denied to Democracy Docket that it was involved in the agreement with DOGE referred to in the legal filing.

Late Update, 2/6/26: A True the Vote representative contacted Democracy Docket and asked that references to it be removed from this story. The representative denied that True the Vote “was directly involved in unlawful data sharing and election-related misconduct” and wrote that the language in this story “propagate[s] the misleading impression that TTV was centrally involved in the alleged agreement and associated misconduct.” 

In its reporting, Democracy Docket has never asserted the identity of the group involved in the agreement.

A recent federal court filing revealed that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team members engaged with a “political advocacy group” to discuss using Social Security data to audit voter rolls in an effort to challenge election results. 

“[O]ne of the DOGE team members signed a ‘Voter Data Agreement,’ in his capacity as [a Social Security Administration] employee, with the advocacy group. He sent the executed agreement to the advocacy group on March 24, 2025,” the filing reads.

The filing, made by Department of Justice lawyers on behalf of the Social Security Administration (SSA), did not name the group. Several prominent election denial organizations have called for the Trump Administration to use Social Security data to audit voter rolls and challenge election results. During the period in question — March, 2025 — one such organization, True the Vote, was publicly mounting a coordinated campaign, pleading with DOGE to use federal databases, including the Social Security Administration, to probe voter rolls. 

True the Vote — which played a key role in promoting the lie that the 2020 election was stolen — framed the effort as urgent, pointing to upcoming elections and claiming that voter registration systems were riddled with inaccuracies that only federal data could expose with their help.

True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht argued that the agency’s access to government records positioned it to scrutinize voter data in ways state and local election officials could not. Engelbrecht cast DOGE as a necessary partner in what she described as an effort to uncover voter fraud and restore confidence in elections — even though voter rolls are maintained by states and subject to strict security protections.

“We are specifically advocating for DOGE to assist in allowing key federal datasets to be queried to resolve identity, residency, and citizenship in voter registration records – and making all findings public,” Engelbrecht wrote in a March 2025 newsletter. “If DOGE (or the DOJ) attempts to engage directly with the states, they should first reflect on what happened in 2017 to the President’s Advisory Committee on Election Integrity. It didn’t go well. States refused to participate, lawsuits started flying, and after less than a year, the Committee was dissolved. And remember, states still can’t get the data they need from Dept of Homeland Security to determine a registered voter’s citizenship status.”

True the Vote made clear it was not simply offering ideas, but actively seeking engagement with the federal government on elections. 

“Given DOGE’s mandate to enhance governmental efficiency and your recent insights into federal data discrepancies, we urge you to extend your investigative rigor to the nation’s voter registration systems,” Engelbrecht wrote in an open letter directly to DOGE. “We have already aggregated and normalized state voter roll data, cross-referenced against multiple sources. By combining DOGE’s access to federal databases with our assembled voter roll information, we can efficiently identify discrepancies and work toward a cleaner, more reliable election system.”

True the Vote  said it had already contacted DOGE directly and suggested its message was gaining traction inside the federal government.

“We’ve received word that this message is being carried forward. Godspeed,” Engelbrecht prefaced in the March letter. 

True the Vote has denied to Democracy Docket that it was involved in the agreement with DOGE.

In the recent legal filing, lawyers for the government described the coordination between DOGE and the unidentified political group referenced in the filing. 

“SSA determined in its recent review that in March 2025, a political advocacy group contacted two members of SSA’s DOGE Team with a request to analyze state voter rolls that the advocacy group had acquired,” federal officials wrote. “The advocacy group’s stated aim was to find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States. In connection with these communications, one of the DOGE team members signed a ‘Voter Data Agreement,’ in his capacity as an SSA employee, with the advocacy group. He sent the executed agreement to the advocacy group on March 24, 2025.”

Internal emails reviewed by SSA indicate the discussions went beyond theory.

“Email communications reviewed by SSA suggest that DOGE Team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls,” the recent court filing states.

The methodology described in the filing closely mirrors the approach True the Vote was publicly proposing: combining privately assembled voter roll data with federal databases to verify identity, residency and citizenship.

“Here’s what we can provide: A detailed list of government databases, recommended queries, code, and supporting data to help in your efforts to identify illegal voters,” Engelbrecht wrote to the Trump administration. “Our experience in election integrity research and our ability to provide structured, actionable data make us an ideal partner in this mission.”

True the Vote has long marketed itself as a data-driven organization, unlike many election denial groups focused primarily on laws and litigation. True the Vote has a history of alleging widespread voter fraud based on flawed data analysis that experts say lacks verifiable evidence. 

Gregg Phillips, who has been a key figure in the organization, rose to national prominence after claiming without evidence that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 presidential election — a claim that was never backed by any reliable data. Phillips now leads an important FEMA office. 

Furthermore, a widely debunked, far-right film used faulty data supplied by True the Vote to allege a multi-state ballot harvesting scheme in the 2020 election. Election officials and courts found no evidence that ballots were unlawfully cast in the way the film depicted.

SSA said it has not found evidence that Social Security data was ultimately shared with the unidentified group referenced in the legal filing, but acknowledged that the agreement and related discussions were unauthorized and only discovered months later during an unrelated internal review.

The disclosures come amid broader legal battles over DOGE’s reach inside federal agencies. Last year, the Supreme Court allowed DOGE to regain access to SSA systems while litigation continues, lifting a lower court order that had temporarily barred that access. The 4th Circuit heard arguments in September on whether to reinstate the district court’s injunction limiting DOGE’s access, but has not yet issued a decision.

This story has been updated.