8 Questions People Are Asking About Trump's Voter Data Requests

1. What exactly is the Trump administration asking states to provide?

The Justice Department has requested full statewide voter registration lists from at least 26 states, including several governed by Republicans. These requests seek personally identifiable information—names, birth dates, home addresses, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers. Some states have pushed back by sending only publicly available or redacted lists. Others have refused entirely, prompting the administration to sue eight states to obtain the unredacted data.

2. Why are Democratic secretaries of state alarmed by these requests?

Ten Democratic secretaries of state say federal agencies have given misleading and sometimes contradictory explanations about how the voter data will be used. They learned that Homeland Security had received voter information and planned to enter it into a federal citizenship-verification system, despite previously denying both steps. With the 2026 midterms approaching, they worry the information could be misused or applied inconsistently across states.

3. What did federal officials originally say about the purpose of the data?

In an August meeting, DOJ officials said the files would help determine whether states were maintaining their voter rolls as required by two federal voting laws. But a month later, Homeland Security officials told states they had already received voter data and would upload it into a citizenship verification system. This directly conflicted with earlier DHS statements claiming they had neither requested nor obtained such information.

4. What role does the SAVE program play in the controversy?

The SAVE program—Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements—is a longstanding DHS tool used to verify citizenship for public benefits. Earlier this year, DHS and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency expanded its capabilities, making it free for election officials and enabling bulk searches of thousands of voters at once. Those updates also allowed searches using names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers rather than DHS-issued IDs. These changes have intensified concerns about how voter data might be screened.

5. How are states responding to the federal demands?

Responses vary widely. Some states have provided only partial or public versions of voter lists, arguing that state law prevents them from sharing full records. Others declined entirely, citing the Justice Department’s failure to comply with federal Privacy Act obligations. Even Republican-led South Carolina has struggled to interpret the request, entering negotiations with the administration over how to legally turn over the data.

6. How is the Justice Department defending its actions?

The DOJ points to its responsibility to enforce federal voting rights laws and ensure accurate voter rolls. Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon said that “clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards” are essential to maintaining public confidence in elections. The department maintains that its requests fall within its legal mandate and are aimed at improving transparency and integrity.

7. What answers are the Democratic secretaries now demanding?

Their letter asks the administration to clarify whether voter files have been shared with Homeland Security or any other federal agency. They also want to know how the data will be used, what security protections are in place, and whether DHS still insists it has “no use” for voter information, despite statements suggesting otherwise. They have asked the administration to provide written responses by December 1.

8. What legal challenges are emerging around the updated federal tools?

Voting rights groups have sued the administration, arguing that the expanded citizenship-verification system could wrongly flag lawful voters and lead to improper purges of state voter rolls. These lawsuits reflect broader concerns that the new bulk-search capabilities may be misapplied. Combined with state-level resistance, they underscore how contentious voter data access has become ahead of the 2026 elections.