Griswold Leads Democratic Secretaries of State Pressing DOJ and DHS Over Federal Use of Voter Data 

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold is leading a group of Democratic election officials challenging the Trump administration over how federal agencies are using requested voter roll data. Their concerns are detailed in a four-page letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The U.S. Department of Justice issued requests earlier this year for state-wide voter registration lists from multiple states, including Colorado. 

In several cases, DOJ asked for “the full, unredacted statewide voter registration list, including registrants’ dates of birth, state driver’s license numbers, and last four digits of Social Security numbers.” Colorado’s request is documented in a May 12 letter from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which cites 52 U.S.C. § 20701 and orders the state to produce records and internal policies within 14 days.

Griswold and the other secretaries say the DOJ initially told them the information was being collected to review compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act. But they write that a Department of Homeland Security official later told them DHS was not receiving or using voter-roll data—despite DHS publicly acknowledging on the same day that the voter information was being prepared for ingestion into the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, or SAVE. That federal immigration-status system is governed by a formal system-of-records notice published in the Federal Register, most recently updated on October 31, 2025.

The SAVE database is designed to verify immigration status for benefits and licensing purposes. 

If full state-wide voter rolls are fed into SAVE, federal agencies would be able to identify individuals who appear both in voter databases and in immigration-status categories indicating non-citizenship. 

That possibility is the unspoken core of the secretaries’ objections. The letter repeatedly questions whether voter information has been compared against immigration systems and asks federal officials to disclose which agencies now hold the data, what fields were shared and which system-of-records authorities authorize its use.

Colorado’s own recent history underscores the significance. In October 2022, the Secretary of State’s office confirmed that approximately 30,000 non-U.S. citizens received voter registration postcards because of a supposed database matching error involving driver license records.

State officials said the postcards did not allow ineligible individuals to register, but the incident demonstrated how non-citizens enter state systems—especially when automatic voter registration is tied to Department of Motor Vehicles transactions.

Colorado’s automatic voter-registration framework is anchored in Senate Bill 19-235, which transfers DMV records to election officials unless individuals opt out. 

State analyses of the system, including the Secretary of State’s 2023 NVRA report, emphasize that increased data flow between DMV and election administration has dramatically expanded voter-file updates. While intended to capture eligible citizens, the system can also pull in records belonging to non-citizens when database classifications or inputs are incorrect.

The federal request for unredacted voter files gives DHS visibility into information that can intersect with immigration records. What that reveals will depend on how the data is processed and where it is ultimately housed.

If those comparisons lawfully show that non-citizens were registered or that someone lacks lawful status, acting on that information would fall within the federal government’s established election and immigration-enforcement powers.

The appearance of non-citizens in voter files gives states reason to update the lists and eliminate ineligible entries. If the same records show the individual is also without lawful status, DHS may follow up through enforcement channels that fall within its jurisdiction.

The letter does not say in so many words that Griswold and the other secretaries fear that result, but the suggestion is there. The officials stress privacy, federal overreach and potential misuse of data. 

They question why DHS initially denied using voter data if the information was already earmarked for SAVE. They ask the DOJ and DHS to state whether voter information is being used beyond NVRA and HAVA compliance, showing concern about expanded federal purposes. And they ask DOJ to identify every federal agency that has received voter-file information, under what authority the data was shared, and which system-of-records notices govern its handling.

Federal interest in potential non-citizen voting is not new. A broader Associated Press review of DOJ’s recent actions found that the department has contacted election officials in at least 19 states seeking statewide voter records and documents related to voter-fraud inquiries. 

Congressional Democrats have also objected to the DOJ’s shift in focus. A July 17, 2025 letter, led by Sen. Alex Padilla, criticizes DOJ’s data requests as “unprecedented and intrusive” and warns that the department appears to be redirecting its voting-rights work toward investigations of voter fraud and non-citizen voting.

If federal agencies are now comparing state voter files with SAVE, the reviews may reveal how many non-citizens have been registered, flagged or processed in voter systems—either through state errors or administrative overlap with driver-license databases. They may also identify individuals lacking lawful status whose information appears in both sets of records. Such findings could lead to corrections of state voter rolls and, where applicable under federal law, immigration-enforcement actions.

Griswold and the other signatories request a written response from DOJ and DHS by December 1. As of this writing, no public response has been issued.