The Trump administration's Justice Department has sent letters to all 50 states and Washington, D.C., warning election officials they face potential criminal prosecution if noncitizens end up on voter rolls or cast ballots, escalating a fierce federal push to seize control of election administration.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division, penned the letters laying out possible criminal liability under federal law. Any election officer who "knowingly retains noncitizens" on state voter lists or "facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots" could be charged, according to the correspondence.
The department gave states five days to respond with details on how they plan to comply with federal election law and invited them to request federal assistance in the matter.
The threat represents the latest chapter in a long-running turf war between Washington and the states over control of elections. The federal government has repeatedly demanded access to state voter rolls, which contain the personal information of millions of Americans. States have consistently refused, and courts have ruled against the administration's requests in at least a dozen cases.
Republican election officials who received the letters pushed back hard. Deidre Henderson, Utah's lieutenant governor and chief elections officer, called the correspondence a "love letter sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution" and said she wasn't alone among state officials being targeted for resisting DOJ demands for voter data that courts had already deemed illegal.
"This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights," Henderson wrote on social media.
Adrian Fontes, Arizona's Democratic secretary of state, bristled at what he characterized as an insult to election officials' competence. He said Arizona's election officials "take their oath to uphold the law seriously" and have always worked to ensure only eligible citizens vote, vowing to follow state law rather than federal intimidation.
The Trump administration and the president himself have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that large numbers of noncitizens are voting and influencing election outcomes. No credible evidence supports such claims. States routinely maintain their voter rolls by removing ineligible voters for various reasons, a standard practice that election administrators say they take seriously.
Author James Rodriguez: "The administration is weaponizing criminal prosecution threats to bully states into handing over voter data courts have already called out of bounds, and it's blowing up in its face with bipartisan pushback from election pros who actually run these systems."
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