Justice Department directs states to hold on to 2024 election records as it seeks their voter data

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is ordering officials in more than two dozen states to preserve records from the 2024 election as part of a campaign to force states to turn over detailed voter records despite repeated court losses.

The Justice Department sent letters to 29 states and the District of Columbia instructing election officials not to destroy the records. Those are places the Trump administration has sued in a bid to gain access to voter registration information that contains addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

In one letter obtained by The Associated Press, a Justice Department official told Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, that she is "under investigation" and subject to ongoing litigation over the state's failure to turn over statewide voter registration lists. The Justice Department declined to elaborate Thursday on the nature of the investigation.

"The purpose of this letter is to notify you of your obligations to take reasonable steps to conduct a litigation hold and preserve and retain all hard copy documents and electronically stored information," wrote Eric Neff, acting chief of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section.

The letter warns election officials that their "failure to preserve relevant data may constitute spoliation of evidence," which could subject them to "civil and criminal sanctions."

In a social media post Thursday, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division, said the Justice Department sent the letters to ensure states do not destroy election records related to the lawsuits that seek to compel election officials to hand over voter registration lists.

"This is standard litigation practice, not a 'threat,'" Dhillon said in a post on X.

Secretaries of state say they already are following the law

Henderson, Utah's top elections official, said in an interview that her office received the letter Friday.

"No letter — and we've gotten a lot of letters from the Department of Justice over the past year — not a single one of them said that we were under investigation for anything," Henderson said. "It was a little bit alarming at first to see those words."

Henderson said her office understands the need to hold onto records during litigation.

"What's not helpful is the constant barrage of attacks and harassment and accusations, baseless accusations, that do nothing to help secure our elections," she said.

Her office also received a letter from the DOJ in July asserting that election officials could be prosecuted if votes from noncitizens are counted in their vote tallies.

Other election offices, including the secretaries of state for Arizona and Minnesota, confirmed they also received the letter.

"Our office will follow the law," said Calli Jones, spokesperson for the Arizona office. "Any implication from this letter or others that implies we are not following the law is disrespectful to the work that election administrators do across Arizona and the country."

Minnesota Secretary of State spokesperson Cassondra Knudson said the office will comply with the Justice Department's request but noted that it goes beyond the federal requirement of maintaining records for 22 months following an election.

Justice Department is in long-running conflict with states over voter data

The preservation demand could set the stage for the Justice Department to seek access to the states' election records as part of the administration's hunt for fraud. The FBI has already obtained records or election equipment related to either the 2020 or 2024 elections from the most populous counties in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia and Michigan without saying what it was searching for.

The letters escalate a fight between the Trump administration over access to the sensitive voter information. Federal officials have said they need the voter data to ensure that states are complying with federal election laws related to maintaining voter registration lists, even though states already have detailed processes to do that.

Some election officials have raised concerns that the request conflicts with state privacy laws. They also are concerned that federal officials will use the sensitive data for other purposes, such as searching for potential noncitizens. In one case, a Justice Department attorney acknowledged the department was seeking unredacted voter roll information so it could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status.

Judges have repeatedly dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuits seeking access to the detailed state voter information, and Attorney General Todd Blanche has suggested the administration might take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The letters come as the administration continues to raise concerns about the potential for voter fraud — in particular, noncitizen voting. While voter fraud and voting by noncitizens does occur, it's rare and gets prosecuted. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud marring American elections.

Trump issued an executive order earlier this year that sought to create a federal voter list and directly involve the U.S. Postal Service in election operations in a way that would limit mail voting. A challenge to that order is now before the Supreme Court. The president also has pushed Congress to pass a bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and have it take effect for the midterms.

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Kelety reported from Phoenix.