'Demand answers': Trump asked directly if he 'misled' state election officials

A group of Democratic secretaries of state in a letter to top Trump administration officials say they’re concerned the administration misled them about how it would use voter data collected from their states.

The letter, dated Tuesday, is addressed to Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, and Kristi Noem, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Justice, overseen by Bondi, in recent months has demanded voter information from numerous states. The information would allow the DOJ to evaluate state compliance with federal voting laws, department officials had said.

But federal officials later acknowledged that the DOJ shared voter roll information with Homeland Security to search it for noncitizens as a way to “scrub aliens from voter rolls.”

The secretaries in their letter express “immense concern” about how the information is being shared, and they “seek clarity on whether DOJ and DHS actively misled election officials regarding the uses of voter data.”

The letter is signed by Colorado’s Jena Griswold as well as Adrian Fontes of Arizona, Shirley Weber of California, Shenna Bellows of Maine, Steve Simon of Minnesota, Francisco Aguilar of Nevada, Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico, Tobias Read of Oregon, Sarah Copeland Hanzas of Vermont, and Steve Hobbs of Washington.

The secretaries fear Trump officials could misuse the information.

“Is the administration collecting in an unprecedented way mass voter data and dumping it into an untested, unverified federal system to spread voter disinformation — disinformation to undermine our elections?” Griswold said in an interview with Newsline.

DHS operates Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, which can identify the citizenship status of a person. The system can be prone to errors.

“We would like to know what the Trump administration is doing with voter data, and I am proud to stand with nine other secretaries of state to demand answers and accountability,” Griswold said. “We ultimately would like to know what the Trump administration is doing and whether they’re taking appropriate steps required under the law to protect voter information.”

The secretaries of state met with senior DOJ and DHS officials twice, on Aug. 28 and Sept. 11, according to the letter. A DOJ official during the first meeting told the secretaries the department intended to use voter data “to assess compliance with the voter list maintenance provisions of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).”

On Sept. 11, Heather Honey, an election conspiracist who is a Homeland Security “election integrity” official, told the secretaries the department had not requested voter data and had no intention of using it, the letter says.

“The same day, DHS publicly contradicted her representation and confirmed that they had received this data and would input it into the unproven and potentially insecure citizenship-check system, SAVE,” the letter says.

The secretaries request details on the sharing of voter data between federal agencies, the security of the information, and contradictory statements by federal officials. They request a response by Dec. 1.

Sweeping requests for information

The DOJ has sent requests for voter data to at least 40 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The request to Colorado in May was among the most sweeping — it sought “all records” related to the 2024 election, among other information.

In response, Griswold’s office supplied two copies of the state’s master voter list — one from 2022 and one from May — and one copy of the master voter history list dating from after the election in November 2024. The data includes the names of voters, their residential addresses, birth year, and, if provided by the voter, phone numbers — all public information. It does not include a voter’s social security number, driver’s license number, month and day of birth, signature or email address.

Other states, including Maine, refused to hand over any information. New Hampshire’s Republican secretary of state David Scanlan, citing a state prohibition, said he wasn’t authorized to provide the DOJ with his state’s voter roll.

The voter data requests are just one of many ways the Trump administration has “made our elections less secure,” she said.

In March, Trump issued an executive order that, though a court has blocked key parts of it, would disenfranchise millions of Americans if it were implemented, according to voter advocates. The administration has dismantled federal entities that had worked to support election security or counter foreign election disinformation. It is attempting to eliminate mail-in ballots.

It is trying to freeTina Peters, the election-denying former Colorado county clerk who is serving a prison term for her role in a scheme to breach the security of her own election equipment.

“I do think it’s very important for elected officials to stand up whenever they can,” Griswold said. “It’s all these small situations that grow on top of each other, and we can’t ignore what’s happening at large. And in this situation, I’m proud that 10 of us are coming together and saying we demand answers from Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem to shine light on whatever the Trump administration is doing with this data.”

This story was originally published by Colorado Newsline, a States Newsroom affiliate.