Trump administration requests voter data from Illinois elections board
[July 30, 2025]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD – The Trump administration has asked Illinois election
officials for a copy of the state’s voter registration database,
including sensitive data about individual voters and detailed
information about the state’s efforts to scrub ineligible voters from
the rolls.
In a letter dated Monday, July 28, lawyers from the U.S. Department of
Justice’s Civil Rights Division also asked for a list of all the
election officials in Illinois who were responsible for carrying out
federally mandated efforts to keep state’s voter rolls accurate and up
to date during a two-year period leading up to the November 2024
elections.
State officials did not immediately comment on the request Tuesday. But
David Becker, a former attorney in the DOJ’s voting section who now runs
the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said 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.”
The voter list maintenance activities are at the heart of a federal
lawsuit against the Illinois State Board of Elections that was filed
last year by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department filed what’s known as a
“statement of interest” in that case, indicating the agency has an
interest in the outcome of the case, but stopping short of formally
seeking to intervene as a party.
A hearing in that case is scheduled for Wednesday morning in Chicago
where U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis could render a decision.
National Voter Registration Act
Under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, states are required to
make available for public inspection records about their efforts to
ensure their voter registration lists are accurate and up to date.
They are also required to file biennial reports with the federal
Election Assistance Commission about the steps they have taken to keep
their lists updated, such as mailing out confirmation notices to voters
and removing the names of voters who have died or moved.
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The Illinois State Board of Elections office is pictured in
Springfield. (Capitol News Illinois file photo)
In response to the Judicial Watch lawsuit, Illinois has asserted that it
is a “bottom up” state when it comes to administering elections, meaning
the registration lists are compiled and maintained by local election
authorities.
According to the DOJ letter and the Judicial Watch lawsuit, the report
Illinois filed for the two-year period leading up to the 2024 election
suggested several counties were doing a poor job of maintaining their
local voter rolls.
The DOJ letter asks not only for detailed explanations of those issues
but also for a complete list of election officials who are responsible
for carrying out the list maintenance responsibilities between November
2022 and November 2024.
For example, the DOJ letter states that 32 of the state’s 102 counties
reported they did not send out any confirmation notices during that
period, while 16 other counties reported the number of notices they sent
was more than 100% of all registered voters in the county.
The letter also asks for the number of voters identified as ineligible
to vote since November 2022 either because they were noncitizens,
adjudicated as incompetent, or for felony convictions.
“First, I should say there is no federal law whatsoever that requires
states to go through their lists and try to find noncitizens,” Becker
said. “But second, I’d note that there’s no evidence that there are any
significant numbers of noncitizens on Illinois’ or any other state’s
voter lists. So once again, it appears the DOJ is seeking to invent
authority that Congress has simply not granted.”
Officials at the State Board of Elections said the agency’s legal
division was reviewing the DOJ request but offered no further comment.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office did not immediately
respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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