Trump DOJ official misled federal judge about sensitive voter data

At a hearing in Providence, Rhode Island in late March, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy questioned Eric Neff — acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) voting section — what DOJ had done with voting data for that state.

Neff told McElroy, "We have not done anything yet…. The United States is taking extra concern to make sure that we're complying with the Privacy Act in every conceivable way."

But according to Wired's David Gilbert, Neff's statements during that hearing were misleading.

Gilbert, in an article published by Wired on April 6, explains, "The DOJ, (Neff) later admitted, was pooling the data and already analyzing it to identify voting irregularities. In a court document filed on March 27, Neff walked back his claims. 'The United States represented that each data set was stored separately. The United States also stated that no analysis had yet been conducted on the data. To correct and clarify the record, preliminary internal data analysis of the nonpublic voter registration data has begun. In particular, the Civil Rights Division has begun the process of identifying and quantifying the number and type of duplicate and deceased registered voters in each state.'"

Gilbert adds, "The revelation confirms what was widely speculated, which is that the DOJ appears to be pooling the data and using it to identify potential issues with suspected voting irregularities ahead of the midterms, which is a core part of Trump's broad attack on elections."

The Wired reporter notes that DOJ's voter section "has undergone a stark transformation" since Trump returned to the White House on January 20, 2025.

"A newly installed coterie of inexperienced but ultra-loyal lawyers in the DOJ's voting section, many of whom have supported election denial conspiracy theories, have spent their time on forcing states to hand over their voter roll information," Gilbert reports. "The initiative began in May last year, when the Department of Justice sent letters to election officials in at least 48 states and Washington, DC, asking for unredacted voter rolls. Some Republican-led states immediately handed over the information, but dozens of others pushed back. As a result, Neff and his colleagues have sued 30 states, asking courts to force them to hand over the information."

Gilbert continues, "So far, courts have sided with the states, with judges already dismissing cases in California, Michigan, and Oregon. In many of the lawsuits, state election officials pointed out the huge security risk involved in sharing such sensitive data, especially when it was unclear how the data would be stored or who it would be shared with."

David Becker, a former DOJ attorney who now heads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, is among the people sounding the alarm about election databases.

Becker told Wired, "We still have no idea what the government is doing with this data. No idea where it is being stored, how it is being protected, or who has access to it. This data is incredibly sensitive. If someone has any of these three data points on any of us, Social Security number, driver's license number, or date of birth, they can wreck us financially. This is why the states protect this data, and they do a good job of it."