American flags hang in August next to the official agency in the US Justice Ministry in Washington, DC. The Ministry of Justice is shared by state voter roller data to the US Ministry of Homeland. (Photo by Jonathan Shorman/Steline)
The U.S. Ministry of Justice shares the state voter roll information with the Ministry of Homeland Security in search of non -citizens, confirmed the Trump government.
The data exchange takes place according to lawyers from the Ministry of Justice this summer required that election officers hand over their voters in almost two dozen states and alert some democratic state secretaries of state and wahle experts. You have expressed anxiety about how the Trump administration wanted to exploit the data. Even some Republican State Secretaries have refused to provide their complete list of voters.
The security of the home protection in a non -signed explanation to Steline, which as an exchange of information for “scrubbing foreigners from the voters buns” and said that the federal government is “finally what it should have – to share information to solve problems.
“This collaboration with the DOJ will enable DHS to legally and critically prevent illegal foreigners from corrupting the democratic process of our republic and further guaranteeing the integrity of our elections.
In its own statement, the Ministry of Justice announced that the data of the state voters’ roll data in response to inquiries from the department for civil rights of the department are “checked for non -justified voter entries”.
Not citizens are extremely sporadic. A study of the 2016 elections placed it Prevalence of coordination with non -citizens submitted at 0.0001% of the votes.
The data exchange marks the next step in the efforts of President Donald Trump to have more influence on the federal government on state -administered elections. At the beginning of this year, Trump signed an executive order in which the individuals were obliged to present documents for the registration of proofs-of state members to vote. A rule that was quickly blocked before the federal court. He also threatened to sign another executive regulation that tries to restrict postal voice.
At least 10 states have either provided publicly available data or gave the department instructions for the request of public data. On Friday, the Republican of Indiana State Diego Morales reporters confirmed that he had provided the Ministry of Justice all requested voters, including the driver’s license and sometimes social security numbers – and made Indiana the first known state that personally delivered sensitive data.
While the administration has not described how the security of the home protection with the voter buns does not look for citizens, the agency operates a powerful program, a systematic verification of triggers for claims or rescue, which can identify the immigration or citizenship status of an individual.
Save was originally supposed to contribute to the state and local civil servants to check the immigration status of individual non -citizens who are aiming for state benefits. The US citizenship and immigration services, which is part of the home protection protection, converted it to a platform this spring on which the voters of the states can scan when the officials upload the data.
In the past, Save was only able to search one name. Now it can make mass search so that civil servants may be able to insert information about millions of registered voters. Save this information in front of a series of federal databases and report back whether you can check a person’s immigration status.
Since May it has also been able to fall back on social security data and transform the program into a tool that can confirm the US citizenship, since the social security records contain the information for many, but not all the Americans.
Since the Ministry of Justice has applied for state voters this summer, letters from the departments of the department to state officials have in many cases request complete lists of registered voters that contain sensitive personal information such as driving license numbers and partly social security numbers. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, at least 22 states were asked for data, which is Persecution The inquiries.
Some states have offered publicly available voters or instructions for request. Others have rejected the inquiries.
“The Ministry of Justice has not shown a good reason for its fishing expedition for sensitive voter information about every American,” said Maine Secretary of Foreign Minister Shenna Bellows, a democrat, in a press release on Monday, in which her office had been rejected by the Ministry of Justice’s second request according to the voter data of the Ministry of Justice.
Justin Levitt, who worked as a leading political consultant for democracy and voting rights in the White House of Biden and is now a professor of law at Loyola Marymount University, said that he has no trust that the security of home protection would act carefully with the data obtained.
Levitt spoke to Stateline on Wednesday before the data exchange was confirmed, concerned that the Ministry of Justice for other companies within the government “served as a stalking horse”.
“The fact that they have to sneak through the back door instead of knocking on the front door tells them that inadmissible procedures are going on,” said Levitt.
This story has been updated to add information from the foreign minister of Indiana Diego Morales, in which he confirmed his shared voter information with the US Ministry of Justice.
Whitney Downard from Indiana Capital Chronicle has contributed to the reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be achieved jshorman@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by StatinsThe part of the States Newsroom is, a non -profit news network that includes West Virginia Watch and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a public charity 501c (3).
