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The right to vote doesn’t just depend on access to the polls on election day – it also depends on trust. To have a truly fair and free democracy, voters must be able to register to vote and cast their ballot without fear that their personal information will be made vulnerable, misused, or weaponized against them.
When we register to vote, we submit personal or sensitive data to our state’s election officials, which could include names, addresses, dates of birth, or even driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers. Much of this information is typically protected under state law and shared only in limited, clearly defined circumstances.
But currently, the Trump administration is putting pressure on nearly every state to turn over full copies of the data in their voter files to the Department of Justice. Why do they want all that information? So they can build a massive, unsecured master list of our personal information that could be used to disenfranchise voters on a large scale.
This would create a massive database of personal information on millions of Americans, one that experts warn could be poorly secured and ripe for abuse. By pooling sensitive information across agencies, the administration is laying the groundwork for a system that could be used to monitor, target, or punish voters, rather than protect the integrity of our elections.
Creating a centralized federal database of voter information opens the door to serious privacy violations. The administration is taking a broad surveillance-style approach that we’ve seen before with DOGE: pooling large amounts of personal data in one place and creating the potential for that information to be misused in the future.
One big concern is that the Trump administration will use outdated and inaccurate data on citizenship status from the Social Security Administration to determine voter eligibility. SSA records are often outdated when it comes to citizenship status, and naturalized citizens have no systematic way to notify the SSA when they become citizens. As a result, eligible voters can be incorrectly flagged as non-citizens — a mistake that can lead to their removal from the voter rolls.
Even when voters are not immediately removed from the rolls, being flagged or investigated can have a chilling effect. Fear of government scrutiny, legal consequences, or harassment discourages people from registering, voting, or engaging in civic life. Communities of color, immigrant communities, and newly naturalized citizens are especially vulnerable to these tactics.
Common Cause is fighting back in court to stop the unlawful seizure and misuse of voter data. This includes suing to block states from handing over sensitive voter information and intervening in federal cases to challenge the DOJ’s attempts to access state voter files.
So far, we’ve taken legal action in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawai, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Minnesota, nortemibaaska, Nuevo Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. to protect voter privacy. These cases are critical to preventing the federal government from building a permanent voter surveillance system.
In addition to legal action, Common Cause is mobilizing public opposition to these dangerous policies. Together with our members and partners, we have generated tens of thousands of public comments to the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security objecting to the pooling and misuse of personal data.
We are sounding the alarm on these efforts, and demanding transparency before irreversible harm is done.
We can’t do this without you. If you’re concerned about Trump’s massive invasion of voter privacy and ready to take action to stop it, please consider supporting our work.
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