Expert Predicts False Claims Following Federal Access to Indiana’s Voter Roll

Indiana’s Voter Rolls Now in Federal Hands, Raising Privacy and Security Concerns

By Marilyn Odendahl

Indiana has joined at least 10 states that have surrendered their voter registration data to the U.S. Department of Justice under the Trump administration’s controversial nationwide collection effort, according to election experts monitoring the situation.

Secretary of State Diego Morales announced in September that his office, after consulting with Attorney General Todd Rokita, had complied with a Justice Department request for Indiana’s complete voter registration list – including names, birth dates, addresses, and partial Social Security numbers of all registered voters in the state.

The federal data collection has sparked significant concerns about privacy, security, and potential misuse of sensitive voter information, with one election law expert suggesting officials may not have fully determined how they’ll use the data they’ve gathered.

“I think that they have taken a very Silicon Valley approach to collecting this data,” said Justin Levitt, constitutional law professor at Loyola Marymount University and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. “Part of me thinks they just wanted to grab it and figure out what to do with it later.”

Levitt, who has tracked the administration’s efforts to obtain voter rolls from at least 27 states, indicated the data will likely be used to support President Donald Trump’s claims about voter fraud. The Justice Department is currently suing eight states that have refused to turn over their voter files.

According to documentation provided by Morales’ office, the Justice Department’s August 14 letter requested an electronic copy of Indiana’s statewide voter registration list with “all fields” of voter data. The department claimed it needed this information to ensure Indiana’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

However, Levitt questioned whether federal officials have legal authority to collect such detailed individual voter information. He noted the Privacy Act of 1974 requires the federal government to publicly disclose what information is being collected, who will have access to it, how it will be safeguarded, and its intended use before collection begins.

“There’s no indication, whatsoever, the Department of Justice has complied with the law,” Levitt said. “I have looked to find out where the DOJ said, ‘Hey, just a heads up, we’re going to do this.’ I got nothing.”

These concerns echo those raised by U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-California) and Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) in a November 6 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. The senators warned that creating a national voter database without congressional oversight poses significant security risks.

“The Trump Administration’s demands for vast amounts of voter data, aggressive tactics, and the greater potential for a centralized database of sensitive personal information pose an immense cybersecurity risk,” the senators wrote. “Our adversaries have attempted to undermine U.S. election integrity before, and the Department is creating a new potential target for them to exploit.”

When asked about the legal basis for releasing voter data, Morales’ office cited Indiana Code 3-7-38.2-18, which directs the secretary of state to comply with NVRA requirements. However, election experts note this statute specifically addresses voter list maintenance responsibilities and contains no language authorizing the sharing of the statewide voter file with federal authorities.

Officials from the secretary of state’s office maintained that the information submitted to Justice did not include each registrant’s voting history. Nevertheless, the data would reveal who in Indiana is registered to vote, which elections they participated in, and which party primaries they selected – information the federal government might not otherwise have access to.

Levitt speculated the administration plans to cross-reference state voter rolls against Homeland Security records, Social Security data, and the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program in an attempt to identify non-citizens registered to vote.

Such efforts have previously yielded minimal results. Louisiana, after conducting an extensive review of its voter rolls using the SAVE database earlier this year, found only 79 potential non-citizens who had voted at least once since the 1980s. Louisiana’s Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry concluded that “non-citizens illegally registering or voting is not a systemic problem in Louisiana.”

Looking ahead, Levitt warned Hoosiers to expect “noise and nonsense” as the administration potentially uses the data to challenge Indiana’s election integrity.

“I don’t think that Indiana voters will have much to worry about, tangibly, other than the noise, which they should be skeptical of,” Levitt said. “I suspect that you will hear nonsense about the quality of the voter rolls in Indiana or elsewhere” coming from the White House, Justice Department, and Department of Homeland Security.

The collection of voter data represents a reversal from 2017, when bipartisan secretaries of state across the country resisted similar requests from the Trump administration’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was later disbanded.

As federal officials proceed with analyzing voter information from states like Indiana, election experts continue to monitor how the data will be used and what impact it might have on public confidence in the electoral system.