HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) \u2014 Ten Democratic state officials expressed concern last week over the Trump administration\u2019s use of voter data.<\/p>\n
The state secretaries of California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Vermont, Colorado, New Mexico, Maine, Nevada and Arizona wrote in a Nov. 18 letter <\/a>to the U.S. Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) that they were concerned with how state voter data<\/a> may be shared. The New York Times reported <\/a>in September that the DOJ planned on sharing voter information with DHS.<\/p>\n \u201cAs Secretaries of State and chief election officials of our respective states, we write to express our immense concern with recent reporting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has shared voter data with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and to seek clarity on whether DOJ and DHS actively misled election officials regarding the uses of voter data,\u201d the officials wrote.<\/p>\n The DOJ asked each of the secretaries in recent months for a state voter registration list, the officials said. Some of the requests were also for voters\u2019 birthdays, driver\u2019s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, according to the secretaries.<\/p>\n A DOJ spokesperson told The National News Desk (TNND) on Monday that the department\u2019s requests, which came from its civil rights unit, were in line with federal law.<\/p>\n \u201cEnforcing the Nation\u2019s elections laws is a priority in this administration and in the Civil Rights Division. Congress gave the Justice Department authority under the [National Voter Registration Act], [Help America Vote Act], the Civil Rights Act, and other statutes to ensure that states have proper voter registration procedures and programs to maintain clean voter rolls containing only eligible voters in federal elections,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n