The Democratic National Committee warned 10 GOP-led states Friday that it will sue them if they cooperate in a Trump administration effort to clean up their voter rolls.
The states are reportedly working on agreements that would have the feds scour their registration lists, looking for ineligible voters, and then the states would agree to boot those people from the rolls within 45 days.
DNC Chair Ken Martin complained that the states would be turning over sensitive voter information to the Trump team.
“As part of their big government power grab, Donald Trump and Pam Bondi want to force states to hand over their voter files so that the Trump administration can create a national database with sensitive personal information like driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, and party affiliation, opening the door to privacy concerns and further political retribution,” he said in a statement.
The legal warning letters focused more on the removal of names that the states would agree to carry out.
Depending on how and when those names are removed, DNC Litigation Director Dan Freeman said it could violate the National Voter Registration Act, or Motor Voter.
That 1993 law prodded states to make it easier to register to vote, but it also required them to take steps to keep their rolls cleansed of ineligible names.
One provision of the law creates a quiet period ahead of an election, where systematic removal of names is forbidden. Mr. Freeman said the 45-day removal timeline that states are agreeing to in their deal with the feds could trample on such a period.
He also said removal under the terms laid out in the draft agreements between the feds and the states would violate Motor Voter’s rules requiring notice be given to those whose names are being booted.
The states targeted by the DNC are Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
Virginia had also been negotiating an agreement with the Justice Department, but it was not one of the states targeted. The state has a Republican governor but will swear in a new Democratic governor on Jan. 17.
The states’ negotiations with the Justice Department were revealed last month in court proceedings in California, according to Stateline.
The Trump administration sued California to get access to some of its voter roll data. It filed similar lawsuits against a number of states.
States that are resisting the effort say they fear the government will pressure them to remove names from their rolls, perhaps snaring legitimate voters in the process.
Trump officials say too many dead people, noncitizens and people who have moved are still left on voter rolls. In an era with expansive mail-in voting, and ballots often sent to every person on the rolls, that creates a risk of fraud.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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