Illinois election officials decline to give Justice Department sensitive voter data

Dan Petrella, Chicago Tribune on Sep 3, 2025

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CHICAGO — Illinois election officials late Tuesday told President Donald Trump’s Justice Department the state would not comply with the federal agency’s demand for sensitive data on the state’s roughly 8.3 million registered voters.

In denying the Justice Department’s request for the state’s full voter registration list — including voters’ birth dates, driver’s license numbers, signatures and partial Social Security numbers — an attorney for the Illinois State Board of Elections wrote that the bipartisan board “has a duty to abide by all state and federal laws governing the protection of sensitive personal information” and that the Trump administration failed to provide adequate legal justifications for its request.

“While (the board) respects and shares the department’s commitment to assessing Illinois’ compliance with the (National Voter Registration Act), we remain concerned about the scope of and authority for the department’s request, given that the NVRA permits redaction of sensitive personal information,” Marni Malowitz, the board’s general counsel, wrote in a four-page letter to top officials in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “We take Illinoisans’ privacy very seriously; data breaches and hacking are unfortunately common, and the disclosure of sensitive information contrary to state law would expose our residents to undue risk.”

The board’s refusal to turn over private voter data comes amid a broader effort from the Trump administration to exert federal authority over state-run elections. Illinois is among 21 states that have received similar requests since May from the Justice Department, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school.

Responding to a late-July request made under the federal voter registration law, the Illinois elections board last month provided federal officials with a copy of the same voter registration list state law makes available to registered political committees and government entities. That list doesn’t include the sensitive personal information federal officials sought.

Tuesday’s letter asserted that several provisions in state and federal law would prohibit the release of such information in the manner the department requested.

While Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon contended in an Aug. 14 letter to the state board that “any statewide prohibitions are clearly preempted by federal law,” the board’s response said the Justice Department hadn’t demonstrated proper legal authority for releasing sensitive voter information in apparent contradiction with federal privacy protections and other laws.

Dhillon’s letter also cited a provision of the federal Civil Rights Act, saying “to the extent there are privacy concerns, the voter registration list is subject to federal privacy protections.” But that section of the federal law allows the department to pass along personal information to “Congress and any committee thereof” and other “governmental agencies.”

Illinois elections officials took issue with the federal government’s attempt to use the civil rights law and the Help America Vote Act to compel the state to release the voter data. The elections board contended the civil rights law can’t be used to force the release of data to aid in the enforcement of other laws and that the Justice Department “has not disputed that Illinois complies” with federal requirements to maintain electronic voter rolls.

If Justice Department officials have evidence of their authority to require the state to provide the information, “we would be happy to review that authority,” Malowitz wrote.

In addition, election officials still are working to provide other information the department asked for related to the ostensible purpose of its request: “assessing Illinois’ compliance with the … list maintenance provisions” of the federal voter registration law.

“Our forthcoming letter—which we are diligently working to provide, as promised, by September 10, 2025 — will include information demonstrating that Illinois complies,” Malowitz wrote.

In a statement to the Tribune, the Justice Department did not respond directly to the election board’s latest missive but instead touted the importance of clean voter rolls.

“Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections,” Dhillon said in an emailed statement. “The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”

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