DOJ hits states with broad requests for voter rolls, election data

The Trump administration and its allies have launched a multipronged effort to gather data on voters and inspect voting equipment, sparking concern among local and state election officials about federal interference ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The most unusual activity is happening in Colorado — a state that then-candidate Donald Trump lost by 11 points — where a well-connected consultant who says he is working with the White House is asking county clerks whether they will allow the federal government or a third party to physically examine their election equipment. Federal agencies have long offered technical assistance and cybersecurity advice to election officials but have not examined their equipment because election laws tightly limit who has access.

Separately, the Justice Department has taken the unusual step of asking at least nine states for copies of their voter rolls, and at least two have turned them over, according to state officials.

In addition, two DOJ lawyers have asked states to share information about voters to implement a Trump executive order that would shift some power over elections from the states to Washington. Courts have temporarily blocked key provisions of that order, including changing mail ballot deadlines and requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. The DOJ attorneys have asked to talk about a different provision, which has not been halted by the courts, focused on sharing information.

The administration’s efforts, fueled by Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, have rattled state and local election officials from both parties who have spent years contending with threats, harassment and litigation. Under the Constitution, states are responsible for running elections, and the federal government plays a limited role — such as by dictating when states must offer opportunities to register to vote — that must be spelled out by Congress. Election officials fear the administration could try to build a national file that includes personal information about voters or impose rules that would boot eligible voters from the rolls and make it harder to cast ballots.

“This is an extraordinary imposition of federal power over states’ election processes that, if it is accepted by the states in this context, will be absolutely used by Democrats in another context,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, who worked in the Justice Department’s voting section under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the activities. The White House did not answer questions about whether it was working with Jeff Small, the operative who has been contacting Colorado clerks, but said the president is committed to helping states ensure voters on the rolls are citizens.

Republican election officials in Colorado fielded calls and messages last week from Small, a consultant who has worked for members of Congress, most recently serving as chief of staff to Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). Small told more than half a dozen GOP county clerks by phone or text that he was working with the Trump administration to ensure the integrity of elections and to advance Trump’s election agenda, county officials told The Washington Post.

“To me, it felt like they were wanting to intervene before 2026,” said Justin Grantham, the Republican clerk in Fremont County.

Five other Republican clerks raised similar concerns.

“That’s a hard stop for me,” said Carly Koppes, a Republican clerk in Weld County, who said she rejected Small’s overtures to allow a federal inspection. “Nobody gets access to my voting equipment, for security reasons.”

More than 350 election officials from at least 33 states joined a conference call Monday to learn more from Becker’s group and Democratic and Republican lawyers about the potential implications of the administration’s moves. Election officials have long bristled at the notion of federal intrusion. In 2017, during Trump’s first term, officials from both parties declined to give a presidential commission detailed information on voters, with Mississippi’s GOP secretary of state telling the task force to “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.”

In a Saturday social media post, Trump made clear he remains focused on election policies and his 2020 falsehoods, writing that Attorney General Pam Bondi is looking into “The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020.” His administration’s latest push for voting data comes a year and a half before the midterms, when Democrats hope to take control of the House, chip away at the Republican majority in the Senate and win more governorships.

“President Trump and his allies are trying to lay the groundwork to interfere with a free and fair election in 2026,” said Samantha Tarazi, CEO of the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab.

The Justice Department’s outreach has differed from state to state, according to agency letters and emails. In Colorado, it made a sweeping request for “all records” related to its election. In Alaska, it questioned why no voters had been removed from the rolls for mental incompetence. In several states, it asked detailed questions about the process to remove noncitizens and other ineligible voters from the rolls.

Grantham, the Fremont County clerk, said Small asked him if he would allow a third party to review whether his voting machines complied with federal law. Grantham declined the request, he said, citing state laws that restrict access to voting machines.

Election officials have been on edge in Colorado since 2020, partly because of Tina Peters, a former Mesa County clerk who was sentenced to nine years in prison last year over a scheme to let an outsider into secure areas of her office to copy election data. This spring, the Justice Department made an unusual move to assist Peters with her appeal, further worrying election officials.

And last week, Small contacted clerks, claiming to have ties to Trump. “I am reaching out on a timely election integrity project I’m working with the White House on and was hoping to chat,” read one text message from Small to a county clerk. A message to another clerk said the outreach “is from Stephen Miller,” the White House deputy chief of staff.

Steve Schleiker, the Republican clerk of El Paso County, said Small told him he was working with the Justice and Homeland Security departments to team up with clerks on election security. Soon after their conversation, Schleiker said, he got a call from a Homeland Security official who wanted to review his election equipment.

“We would like to test the voting equipment to see if there’s any gaps,” the official said, according to Schleiker.

Schleiker said the administration had no authority to “try to infiltrate a state’s or a county’s election equipment.” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) likened the efforts to Trump’s unsuccessful push to reverse the 2020 election, which ended with his supporters rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“This is the 2020 playbook on steroids,” Griswold said.

“This all is part of a bigger ploy to further undermine our voting in this country,” she said. “They are actively in a power grab.”

Matt Crane, a Republican and the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said election officials from both parties resist attempts to examine their equipment. “Anybody who is asking for access to the voting machines outside of the law … that automatically raises red flags in terms of their intent,” he said.

Small hung up on a Post reporter Tuesday and did not respond to messages seeking comment. After this article published, Small said in a text message Wednesday that he had been asked to contact county clerks by “officials working on the President’s executive order.” He did not name the officials or provide other details about his work.

A spokesman for Boebert declined to comment on the outreach to clerks by her former chief of staff. A Homeland Security spokesperson said that the agency works closely with others on election security but that “we don’t disclose every single conversation we have with them.”

Separately, the Justice Department has recently asked some states for copies of their voter lists. Those inquiries went to a mix of Republican and Democratic-controlled states, including Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, according to copies of the letters and information from state election officials.

Some information contained in voter rolls — such as names of voters and elections in which they have participated — is commonly available. Other information, such as the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, is not. Colorado and Florida have provided the Justice Department with information from their lists that is generally available to the public, while most other states said they were reviewing the requests.

Federal law gives the Justice Department the ability to ensure states have procedures in place to remove ineligible voters and otherwise properly maintain their rolls. It does not expressly give the agency the authority to review the voter rolls themselves.

States routinely check their rolls to identify people who are ineligible because they are not citizens, have moved to another voting jurisdiction, have been convicted of a felony or have died. The administration could do its own checks with copies of the voter rolls, but it would need versions with dates of birth and other identifying information to properly match data with citizenship, death and court records, according to experts.

Ann Jacobs, chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said she worries the federal government could try to use the information to justify new rules that would make it harder to cast ballots.

The sloppy use of data can result in inaccurate matches that give election skeptics opportunities to tout exaggerated claims of ineligible voters appearing on the rolls, Jacobs said. Voters deserve answers about why the administration wants information about them and what it plans to do with it, she said, particularly when federal laws are supposed to protect Social Security numbers and other private information.

“Is this a backdoor way to get access to the data that the statutes have said [they’re] not entitled to have?” said Jacobs, a Democrat.

The Justice Department’s voting section last month sued Orange County, California, to obtain driver’s license numbers and signature images of people who had been taken off the county’s rolls because they were not citizens. The lawsuit has worried election officials elsewhere because it signals the department wants access to personal information that is usually protected.

Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor who advised the Biden White House on voting rights, called the requests for voter rolls “exceptionally unusual” and said they probably violate federal privacy law because the administration has not given fuller public explanations for why it wanted them. He also worries about the security risks of the federal government housing sensitive data on 174 million registered voters in a centralized system, he said.

“It’s one thing if a county’s voter file gets hacked,” he said. “It’s a much bigger problem if the federal government is amassing a national voter file that gets hacked.”

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• Razzan Nakhlawi contributed.