The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division used to be known as the "crown jewel" of the department. But the division’s voting section has been taken over by election deniers who are turbocharging Trump’s voter suppression plans ahead of the midterms.
In a new piece, we dig into the DOJ's unprecedented demands for unredacted voter rolls from dozens of states in an effort to create the federal government’s first-ever national database of registered voters, accompanied by their private information. We're talking party affiliation, Social Security numbers, drivers’ license information, and even physical characteristics.
More than a dozen state election officials, former DOJ staff, and election experts told us that such a database could lead to massive breaches of Americans’ private information and reinforce false narratives about the frequency of voter fraud—narratives Trump and his allies could weaponize to challenge election outcomes or even the eligibility of individual voters in the fast-approaching 2026 midterm elections. The DOJ has already sued 14 states to demand access to their voter files, 12 of them led by Democrats.
As Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told us, “The election deniers are now ascendant in the federal government.”
You can read the full story about the Trump administration’s efforts to create an immense database of your private information—and how it could jeopardize your access to the ballot—here at Mother Jones.
—Abby Vesoulis and Ari Berman
