Markey Joins Padilla, Durbin, Colleagues in Urging Trump's Justice Department to Cease Pressure Campaign to Obtain States’ Sensitive Voter Data, Purge Voter Rolls

Senators raise alarm on Attorney General Bondi’sattempt to coerceMinnesota Governor Walz into relinquishing the state’s voter registration list as a condition for the removal of ICE and CBP from Minneapolis following the rejection of DOJ’s lawsuits in two other states
Washington (January 29, 2026) — Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today joined Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 25 Senate colleagues in pushing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop its unlawful pressure campaign to coerce dozens of states into providing the Trump Administration their voter rolls, which include voters’ personally identifiable information. Despite lacking legal authority, DOJhas sued 24 statesand Washington, D.C. for refusing to hand over their full voter registration lists. The Senators sounded the alarm that the Administration’s efforts risk unjustified voter roll purges, pose severe privacy and national security concerns, and subvert state and local election officials’ authority to maintain registration lists.
Theletterto Attorney General Pam Bondi comes after sherecently wroteto Minnesota Governor Tim Walz pushing him to surrender the state’s voter rolls as part of an exchange for the Administration calling off its dangerous deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and agents to Minneapolis, an operation that has already led to the unjustified killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. That letter followed two recent federal court rulings rejecting DOJ’s voter roll lawsuits in California and Oregon.
After DOJ ignored aprevious inquiryled by Senators Padilla and Durbin into the Administration’s efforts to amass state voter data and initial lawsuits againsteight states, including California, the Senators demanded DOJ provide responses to their earlier queries, along with new questions on its continued pursuit of state voter rolls in the face of two federal court rulings rejecting its litigation and regarding the safeguards in place for handling the information it already has from millions of voters. The Senators also requested a briefing to the Senate Judiciary and Rules and Administration Committees, as well as Senators whose states have been sued by DOJ.
The Attorney General’s letter to Governor Walz “marked an unacceptable escalation of DOJ’s campaign to centralize state voter rolls and sensitive personal information under its control,”wrote the Senators.“It is also the clearest admission that the Department knows it lacks authority to obtain state voter rolls and is instead resorting to strong arm tactics and intimidation by force.”
“While most states are resisting this illegal voter roll grab, we are gravely concerned by the amount of sensitive data the Department has already amassed on millions of American voters,”continued the Senators. “The Department has failed to provide Congress, or the public, any information on how it is maintaining this vast amount of data, the guardrails in place to protect state voter information, how the data is to be used, or who in the federal government has access to this sensitive data.”
The Senators highlighted President Trump’s baseless claims of federal authority over elections, standing in stark contrast to American federalism and the Constitution, which outline clear roles for states and Congress but none for the Executive Branch. Trump erroneously claimed in aTruth Social postthat “states are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”
Two weeks ago, federal judges in California and Oregon held that those states were not required to provide DOJ with unredacted copies of their voter registration lists. The court in Californiawarned that“DOJ’s campaign to collect sensitive voter data … paints an alarming picture regarding the centralization of Americans’ information within the Executive Branch — without approval from Congress or Americans themselves.” The Senators pushed Attorney General Bondi to stop wasting taxpayer dollars through DOJ’s unchecked mass litigation pressure campaign that jeopardizes data privacy and could lead to voter purges.
Despite the Administration’s claims, voting by noncitizens isextremely rare, made even clearer by a review of Texas’ voter registration list of more than 18 million voters through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. Thereview flaggedonly 33 people — 0.000001% of registered voters — as potentially having voted illegally in the 2024 election.
As DOJ has sharply increased its possession of voter registrations and data, including from Texas and at least seven other states who have already relinquished their complete voter registration lists, the Senators stressed that recent changes to and the expanded use of the insufficiently tested SAVE program could lead to some individuals mistakenly being flagged as noncitizens, threatening their right to vote. DOJ’s pressure campaign, in collaboration with outside election denier groups, to coerce state voter registration lists and run them through the SAVE program has already led to issues. Last month, 70 county clerks in Missourisent a letterto state House and Senate leadership underscoring that the flawed SAVE program has erroneously flagged individuals known by the county clerks to be U.S. citizens, including voters that the clerks personally registered at naturalization ceremonies.
The letter was signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Full text of the letter is availableHERE.
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