Civil rights groups sue DHS over nationwide voter data compilation
On Oct. 15, 2026 the League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the League of United Latin American Citizens filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s compilation of voter registration data from almost every state.
The groups argue the program breaches the Privacy Act because the information is not relevant to any authorized purpose and encroaches on First Amendment freedoms. They ask the court to declare the policy illegal, stop further data collection, and order deletion of the records already gathered.
According to the complaint, DHS obtained voter files from at least 47 states, processing 50.6 million records received through the Justice Department and another 48.4 million from additional sources by June. The agency allegedly merged this information with commercially purchased databases that may include Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and birth dates.
EPIC Executive Director Alan Butler said the effort represents “sweeping up our most sensitive data by any means necessary to fuel its anti‑immigration agenda and chase down nonexistent voter fraud.” League of Women Voters CEO Celina Stewart warned that the government “has no business secretly collecting the sensitive personal information of millions of American voters and feeding it into immigration enforcement systems under the guise of election security.”
Critics note a prior incident in Nevada where DHS first claimed to have identified nearly 16,000 noncitizen voters, later revising the figure to 185—each of whom was verified as a citizen. The lawsuit highlights that the agency’s use of voter data for immigration enforcement could set a precedent for broader government surveillance of lawful political activity.
In addition to seeking an injunction, the plaintiffs request that DHS delete the compiled data and any copies that may exist in other federal systems. The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to requests for comment.
The case now moves toward a hearing, where the court will weigh the government’s national‑security arguments against the plaintiffs’ privacy and constitutional concerns, a decision that could shape how voter information is accessed and used in the future.
