Latest news with #NationalVoterRegistrationAct
Gulf Today
10-08-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
DOJ's push to collect your data is a fishing expedition
With his approval rating sinking lower and lower, and facing the prospect of losing control of the House to Democrats, President Donald Trump is engaged in an unprecedented attempt to manipulate the midterm elections. Not only has he demanded that Texas redraw its congressional districts, he's now got Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice embarking on another insidious strategy: Building a dossier of private information on every voter that Trump can use for political advantage. Over the past several weeks, the DOJ Civil Rights Division has sent letters to more than a dozen states demanding they hand over their voter lists, including sensitive private information — such as driver's license and Social Security numbers linked to names, home addresses and, in many cases, dates of birth. The DOJ is telling state election officials that it needs the data to check their compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act — presumably to hunt for illegal voting — and it reportedly intends to contact all 50 states. But while federal law gives the Justice Department the ability to require states to put procedures in place to comply with those laws and remove ineligible voters from voter rolls, it doesn't give the federal government authority over election administration — and that includes reviewing and maintaining the rolls themselves, said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. 'We're seeing an unprecedented effort to seize power that is not granted under the Constitution, to realign the balance of power between the executive branch and the judiciary and, especially, the states,' he said. There's another reason the DOJ may want the data. NPR reported recently that the administration is building a searchable national citizenship data system to be used by state and local election officials to root out noncitizen voting — something election experts say is an inconsequential problem. A report released last week from Becker's organisation concluded that in states that have investigated the issue, incidents of noncitizen voting are minuscule and random. By all indications, the DOJ data call is a massive fishing expedition. 'They are just looking for any kind of indication of wrongdoing or error that they can point to, to further fuel the federal government's intrusion into election administration,' said Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organisation that advocates for government accountability. Yet Michael Whatley, the Republican National Committee Chair, obliquely defended the effort as about 'election integrity' and trying to ensure 'safe and secure elections in key states.' That's obfuscation. It sounds to me — and to the election experts I've talked with from both parties — that this exercise isn't really about election integrity, but about laying the groundwork for a political strategy for the midterm elections. That strategy could take many frightening forms, the experts told me. Trump could suggest that states can't be trusted and use that to justify a state of emergency that allows him to seize control of state voting operations or suspend voting in certain states. (Never in American history have we suspended federal elections, Becker says — and that includes during wars, pandemics and natural disasters.) Or Trump could distort the voter data he collects and use it to continue to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about the security of US elections. One result of these conspiracies, as we've learned, is that many Americans distrust any election where their candidate loses. Even just collecting the data may scare some people into staying away from the polls. There are many people who might decide not to vote if they think federal access to their personal data could be used to intimidate them. What's especially troubling is that the DOJ's action could undermine the decentralised elections system 'that makes our elections so resilient and so resistant to things like foreign interference,' Diaz told me. The Constitution intentionally gives election administration exclusively to the states because 'the founders were very skeptical of a sort of all-powerful executive — having just thrown off the shackles of a king.' For states to comply with these letters, they would have to violate a federal law that prohibits the sharing of driver's license numbers and, in many cases, also violate their state constitutions. According to a list assembled by the National Conference of State Legislatures, many states have stricter privacy protections for their voter files than the federal government does. Another troubling development is that while states have developed strict protocols for protecting this information, the DOJ hasn't said how it will keep the data safe from hackers and cybersecurity breaches. The agency has an obligation to protect individuals, including elected officials, judges, domestic violence victims and others whose personal information is under a protective order or exempt from public disclosure and it owes the public an explanation for how it's going to handle the data if it gets it. Trump tried to intimidate states like this in his first term, when he created a special commission that told states to turn over their voter files so the federal government could audit them. Election officials forcefully pushed back. Members later admitted the group was set up to validate Trump's voter fraud claims. The commission was disbanded. This time, that resistance may be quieter, but election officials in both red and blue states appear to be defying the DOJ request and turning over only the parts of their voter files that are already public. In a letter to the DOJ, New Hampshire's Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan pointed to a state law that says the voter database 'shall be private and confidential' and not subject to any records requests. And Utah's Republican Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson told the Salt Lake City Tribune on Thursday that the state turned over its public voter list to federal officials, but 'if they want protected data, there's a process for government entities to request it for lawful purposes.' Then there's Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, who said this week that her state law doesn't allow her to release the data and suggested Trump's DOJ 'go jump in the Gulf of Maine.' If Bondi has a good reason to force states to turn over the voter data, she should state the reason and ask Congress to change federal law to do it. Until then, every American should be concerned about the president trying to exercise power that he doesn't have so he can invade your privacy because you decided to vote.
New York Post
19-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
The Biden administration secretly stole your data to engineer elections and silence speech
While the Department of Government Efficiency traces the flow of dollars between government and partisan activists, the flow of data may reveal an even deeper menace. The real story of government weaponization can only be told once we reckon with the shadowy data-sharing web secretly used to manipulate elections, punish foes and silence speech — which my new book, 'They're Coming for You,' dares to expose. Without the constitutional authority to collect our financial transactions, our browsing histories or our location data, the Biden administration found a workaround. Federal agencies outsourced unconstitutional data grabs to politically aligned partners. Instead of collecting data directly, they bought or sold it from or exchanged it with nonprofits and tech companies. 5 Author Jason Chaffetz was a House Oversight Committee chairman. Reuters My book exposes three critical fronts where this abuse thrived: election interference, citizen surveillance and the erosion of free speech. The silent manipulation of voters through our data demands urgent scrutiny to protect future elections. While DOGE's budget probes grab headlines, the real scandal is deeper. A Biden executive order forced every federal agency to conduct ostensibly nonpartisan voter-registration drives. Yet the implementation often told a different story. 5 Book The Small Business Administration, for instance, diverted its limited resources toward partisan voter outreach. The agency proactively contacted states, particularly swing states like Arizona and Georgia, to request designations as voter-registration entities, though federal law requires states to make the first move under the National Voter Registration Act. Emails obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests reveal the SBA's focus on liberal voting blocs, including promoting events likely to register Democratic-leaning voters in blue precincts. 'How many events have you run to open small businesses in non-Democratic areas?' one lawmaker asked SBA Associate Administrator for Field Operations Jennifer Kim during a 2024 hearing. Kim didn't answer directly but assured the committee politics played no role in the agency's outreach — a claim the efforts' documented partisan skew contradicts. 5 The Small Business Administration's Jennifer Kim faced questions of agency bias at a 2024 House hearing. YouTube This wasn't random. It was a calculated use of our information, supported by partisan allies, to evade transparency. The result? A voter base quietly reshaped, funded by us but hidden from view. This breach of trust — turning our data into a political tool — undermines democracy itself. My book uncovers this network, revealing how agencies and partners weaponized government services without our knowledge. Voter manipulation is just the opening salvo. The Biden administration unleashed warrantless surveillance to silence dissenters, pressuring financial institutions to flag 'suspicious' transactions and debank opposing voices. This effort ultimately targeted Christian nonprofits, gun makers, conservative protesters — even Melania and Barron Trump — closing their accounts without cause. By buying and sharing information with activist nongovernmental organizations and corporations, financial regulators dodged legal restrictions on government data collection. 5 If this data weaponization goes unchecked, Chaffetz warns, it won't end with the Biden administration. AP This financial chokehold is just the start. President Biden's administration also expanded the National Security Agency's warrantless-surveillance programs to collect bulk data, including phone metadata, browsing histories and emails, bypassing Congress and public transparency. This data net muzzles your voice. Social-media giants Facebook, YouTube and pre-Elon Musk Twitter faced pressure, with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency flagging 859 million tweets as 'misinformation' in 2023, burying 22 million. Among those, many truthful but politically inconvenient facts were buried under labels such as 'Trends blacklist' and 'Do not amplify.' 5 A White House dissent crackdown ensnared Melania and Barron Trump. Getty Images NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, each with documented Biden-adminsitration ties, amplified this bias by assigning conservative outlets disproportionately low reliability ratings. The Federalist, for example, received a NewsGuard failing score of 12.5 out of 100, allegedly for publishing content deemed objectionable to Democrats rather than for spreading inaccurate information. This harsh rating caused advertisers to flee, severely undercutting revenue to conservative outlets that dared tell the truth. By contrast, left-leaning sites such as NPR and The New York Times consistently received top ratings, regardless of their reporting errors, reinforcing their dominance in news visibility and funding. Artificial-intelligence tools, funded by government programs, downranked conservative narratives, ensuring they vanished from searches. YouTube even tweaked algorithms at the feds' behest. Censorship laundering through NGOs masked illegal moves, monitoring posts to crush wrongthink. The stakes couldn't be higher. If this data weaponization goes unchecked, it won't end with Democrats or the Biden administration. History has shown us the erosion of liberties for one group inevitably sets the stage for broader abuses. Today, it's conservatives being silenced; tomorrow, it might be anyone who dissents. But there's hope. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and Americans of all political stripes should demand transparency and accountability from their government and its partners. Whether through boycotts, lawsuits or investigators like DOGE, there are ways to fight back. Free speech and an open exchange of ideas define our democracy. When those in power suppress dissent, they betray not just their critics but the Constitution itself. 'They're Coming for You' is a first step in exposing this corruption. But the responsibility to stop it falls on us all. Stand for truth. Demand accountability. And above all, protect the freedoms that make America a beacon of liberty. Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz is a former House Oversight Committee chairman.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Second judge blocks most of Trump's executive order on elections
A federal judge on Friday blocked key provisions of President Donald Trump's executive order that sought to make it harder to register to vote in federal elections, including a requirement for voters to prove their citizenship. Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Denise Casper wrote in the ruling that the Constitution gives the power to regulate elections to Congress, adding that lawmakers have not passed any laws that authorize Trump's actions or otherwise delegate their authority to the president. Casper, an Obama appointee, blocked parts of Trump's March order that directed federal and local officials to require documentary proof of citizenship when people register to vote and to assess citizenship before distributing voter registration forms at designated public assistance agencies, such as Medicaid offices. Those parts of Trump's executive order have also been blocked by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in a separate lawsuit filed by voting rights groups and Democratic party officials. The latest ruling by Casper, which came in a case brought by the Democratic attorneys general in 19 states, went further to block most of Trump's executive order. Casper's decision bars enforcement of another provision that required proof of citizenship from military members and citizens living abroad. And it blocks provisions seeking to prevent states from counting ballots that were mailed on or before Election Day, but arrive afterward; and from allowing voters to fix timely submitted ballots that include minor, technical mistakes. 'Only Congress has the power to adjust state election rules,' Casper wrote, noting that the legislature 'has done so through its enactment of' the National Voter Registration Act and other laws. 'Defendants cannot point to any source of authority for the President to impose' the new requirements in the executive order, the judge wrote.
Politico
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Second judge blocks most of Trump's executive order on elections
A federal judge on Friday blocked key provisions of President Donald Trump's executive order that sought to make it harder to register to vote in federal elections, including a requirement for voters to prove their citizenship. Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Denise Casper wrote in the ruling that the Constitution gives the power to regulate elections to Congress, adding that lawmakers have not passed any laws that authorize Trump's actions or otherwise delegate their authority to the president. Casper, an Obama appointee, blocked parts of Trump's March order that directed federal and local officials to require documentary proof of citizenship when people register to vote and to assess citizenship before distributing voter registration forms at designated public assistance agencies, such as Medicaid offices. Those parts of Trump's executive order have also been blocked by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in a separate lawsuit filed by voting rights groups and Democratic party officials. The latest ruling by Casper, which came in a case brought by the Democratic attorneys general in 19 states, went further to block most of Trump's executive order. Casper's decision bars enforcement of another provision that required proof of citizenship from military members and citizens living abroad. And it blocks provisions seeking to prevent states from counting ballots that were mailed on or before Election Day, but arrive afterward; and from allowing voters to fix timely submitted ballots that include minor, technical mistakes. 'Only Congress has the power to adjust state election rules,' Casper wrote, noting that the legislature 'has done so through its enactment of' the National Voter Registration Act and other laws. 'Defendants cannot point to any source of authority for the President to impose' the new requirements in the executive order, the judge wrote.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
DOJ supports lawsuit challenging Oregon's voter roll maintenance
PORTLAND, Ore. () — The United States Department of Justice is responding to a lawsuit filed by a conservative organization against Oregon, alleging the state has not adequately maintained lists of eligible voters in the state. On Friday, the DOJ filed a , explaining the federal government is following the case as it involves the National Voter Registration Act. The lawsuit was filed on October 30, 2024, by the conservative organization Judicial Watch and the Constitution Party of Oregon against then-Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin Valade, claiming Oregon violated the NVRA by not maintaining its voter rolls and making voter roll inspection records public. As Griffin Valade is no longer in office, the current Oregon Secretary of State, Tobias Read, is now named in the lawsuit. Esquire names Portland bar among the best in the U.S. in 2025 Now, the U.S. Department of Justice is adding its own response to the lawsuit. The DOJ explained that the U.S. Attorney General is tasked with enforcing NVRA mandates, citing a March executive order from President Donald Trump, stating the attorney general will enforce voter-list requirements under the NVRA. The order also directs the attorney general to enter 'information-sharing agreements with state election officials' to find cases of election fraud. Additionally, the order says that states that do not comply could face 'prioritized federal enforcement of election integrity laws and loss of funding.' 'Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in Oregon are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud,' said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. 'States have specific obligations under the list maintenance provisions of the NVRA, and the Department of Justice will vigorously enforce those requirements.' In the DOJ's statement of interest, the agency explained, 'This case presents important questions regarding enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act,' adding, 'Congress has vested the Attorney General with authority to enforce the NVRA on behalf of the United States.' 'Accordingly, the United States has a substantial interest in ensuring proper interpretation of the NVRA. The United States submits this Statement of Interest for the limited purpose of addressing the requirements under the NVRA for states to maintain and make available for public inspection certain records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters,' the DOJ wrote. Portland middle school goes into lockdown while teen suspect rams cars outside The DOJ noted that before Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit, the organization sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Griffin Valade on August 4, 2023, regarding several NVRA topics and requested public records, including a list of the names and addresses of voters who were sent, for example, notices by the state to confirm a change of residence and which voters responded. The letter from Judicial Watch also sought records for communications, voter list maintenance manuals and audits. According to the DOJ, a support desk analyst from the Oregon Central Voter Registration System responded to the request, explaining it would take about 5,000 hours to get the requested information, in part, because it would require consultation with different county election officials. 'After internal review, we have identified significant additional labor cost to provide a full data set of returned voter notification cards (VNCs). Counties have historically used slightly different processes and have latitude to define some process steps in our current system. Researching this historical information would require significant consultation with county officials, including some who may have retired, and significant additional review of data by the SOS after such consultation. We estimate this work would take approximately 5,000 hours to complete due to the level of customization required for each of the 36 counties in Oregon.' Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now The lawsuit alleges that the response shows Oregon failed to comply with the NVRA. ''NVRA and related federal regulations require Oregon, and not its counties, cities, or local authorities, to maintain and make available statewide records of Confirmation Notices sent and of responses to them,'' the lawsuit alleges, furthering that former Secretary Griffin Valade was unable to fulfill her statutory duty unless she has access to voter list maintenance records. The lawsuit claims that the NVRA supersedes any Oregon practice. In the DOJ's statement of interest, the department added, 'the state holds responsibility for Section 8(i)'s requirements and cannot delegate its responsibility, whether or not under state law the county clerks are primarily responsible for, and carry out, work involved in meeting those NVRA obligations.' ODOT cracks down on 'fatigued, unqualified' commercial truck drivers on I-84 In its lawsuit against the state, Judicial Watch alleges that Oregon's voter rolls have 'large numbers of old, inactive registrations; and that 29 of Oregon's 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law.' KOIN 6 News has reached out to Judicial Watch and the Constitution Party of Oregon. This story will be updated if we receive a response. In a statement to KOIN 6 News, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said, 'I can't comment on ongoing litigation. What I can say is that we take our responsibility to maintain secure, accurate voter rolls seriously. Oregonians want and deserve fair and free elections. We must do everything in our power to deliver.' 'Immediate threat to public safety': Longview cracks down on unsanctioned camping According to the organization's website, Judicial Watch is self-described as 'a conservative, non-partisan, educational foundation which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.' 'The motto of Judicial Watch is 'Because no one is above the law.' To this end, Judicial Watch uses the open records or freedom of information laws and other tools to investigate and uncover misconduct by government officials and litigation to hold to account politicians and public officials who engage in corrupt activities,' Judicial Watch's website says. The president of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, has also previously given legal advice to then-former President Donald Trump regarding Trump's retention of presidential records, reported in 2022. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
