DOJ demands sensitive Illinois voter registration data after state
responds
[August 16, 2025]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD – The U.S. Department of Justice is insisting Illinois
election officials hand over the state’s entire computerized voter
registration database, including sensitive information such as driver’s
license and partial Social Security numbers.
In a letter dated Thursday, Aug. 14, an attorney in the department’s
Civil Rights Division rejected the Illinois State Board of Elections’
offer of a partially redacted database – the same data that state law
allows political committees and other governmental agencies to access –
insisting that federal authorities are entitled to the complete,
unredacted data.
“We have received Illinois’s statewide voter registration list (“VRL”),”
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote. “However, as the
Attorney General requested, the electronic copy of the statewide VRL
must contain all fields, including the registrant’s full name, date of
birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number or
the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number as
required under the Help America Vote Act (‘HAVA’) to register
individuals for federal elections.”
The letter indicated DOJ was making the request under a provision of the
National Voter Registration Act, also known as the “Motor Voter Act,” a
1993 law that was intended to make it easier for people to register
whenever they conducted other government business such as obtaining a
driver’s license or renewing their vehicle registration.
“Our request is pursuant to the Attorney General’s authority under
Section 11 of the NVRA to bring enforcement actions,” the letter stated.
The letter also cited the 2002 Help America Vote Act. Passed in the wake
of the controversial 2000 election between Republican George W. Bush and
Democrat Al Gore, that law made sweeping changes to the nation’s voting
processes, including new requirements about how states must maintain
accurate and up-to-date voter registration databases.
‘Not entitled to demand’
DOJ first requested a copy of the Illinois database in a July 28 letter.
That was a few weeks after the agency filed what’s known as a “statement
of interest” in a civil lawsuit that the conservative legal activist
group Judicial Watch, along with other plaintiffs, had filed against the
state board, alleging it was not meeting its duties under HAVA to
maintain the voter database.
In that initial letter, DOJ also requested the names of all election
officials in the state who are responsible for maintaining the
registration list. It also asked the state to identify the number of
people removed from the registration list during the 2022 election cycle
because they were noncitizens, adjudicated incompetent or due to felony
convictions.
David Becker, a former attorney in the DOJ’s voting section who now runs
the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told
Capitol News Illinois last month that the letter is similar to requests
filed in multiple other states and that it goes far beyond the Justice
Department’s legal authority.
“The Department of Justice asked for the complete voter file for the
state of Illinois, including all fields in that file, which is an
absolutely huge file that contains so much sensitive data about Illinois
citizens, including driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers
and dates of birth that the Department of Justice is not entitled to
receive and not entitled to demand,” he said in an interview. “They know
this. Other states have told them this, and yet they continue to seek to
receive this information, citing sections of federal law that don’t
apply and don’t require that.”
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Gov. JB Pritzker takes questions during a news conference Thursday,
Aug. 14, 2025, in Springfield. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry
Nowicki)
Illinois’ initial response
The State Board of Elections responded to that request Aug. 11 with
answers to DOJ’s questions as well as an electronic copy of what it
described as the statewide voter registration list.
However, the board also cited a state statute that limits what the
agency can disclose from the centralized registration list.
A spokesperson for the board said in an email that the law allows the
release of two types of data files. One, available only to political
committees or “a governmental entity for a governmental purpose,”
includes the voters’ names and addresses, their age at the time the
registration was completed, the voting jurisdictions in which they
reside, and their voting history. That includes elections in which they
voted and, in the case of primary elections, which party’s ballot they
selected.
That is the list the state board provided to DOJ. The board also waived
the normal $500 fee it charges for providing the list.
Another version of the file, available to the general public, contains
much of the same information, but only the name of the street on which
they live, not their exact street address.
But neither file, the spokesman said, contains voters’ personal
identification information used to verify voter registrations such as
driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers.
DOJ, Pritzker respond
In its letter Thursday, however, DOJ said the list that the elections
board provided was insufficient.
“In charging the Attorney General with enforcement of the voter
registration list requirements in HAVA and the NVRA, Congress plainly
intended that DOJ be able to conduct an independent review of each
state’s list,” Dhillon wrote. “Any statewide prohibitions are preempted
by federal law.”
The letter directed the board to provide the information by Aug. 21.
The board spokesman said the latest DOJ letter is “under review.”
On Monday, Pritzker declined to say whether the board’s decision to
provide the partially redacted database was the correct one. But he also
accused the Trump administration of ulterior motives.
“Well, it’s clear why they’re hunting around for voter data, right?
They’re trying to say that in the next election, that there will be
fraud because they know they’re going to lose,” he said at an unrelated
bill signing. “They are looking, essentially, to say that, well, we
found somebody who died who’s still on the rolls, and therefore there’s
fraud, and therefore these elections are fraudulent and should be
overturned.”
He also defended Illinois’ decentralized election system.
“We have, actually, one of the safest, best systems in the entire
country, because it’s run by individual county clerks so it’s unhackable,”
he said.
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