The United States Department of Justice announced on Tuesday it had filed lawsuits against New Mexico and five other states for failing to produce statewide voter registration lists.
The agency began asking state election officials for their voter rolls last July. As Source reported at the time, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver’s office also received requests at that time, and told Source NM her office was “reviewing whether or not we are legally able to prevent sending the private data, which would be Social Security, all dates of birth and driver’s license numbers.”
Last month, Toulouse Oliver signed a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem expressing concern about the federal government’s request for states’ voter rolls.
The Nov. 18 letter, as Colorado Newsline originally reported, was signed by 10 Democratic secretaries of state, and raised concerns about inconsistent information from the federal agencies about how they are using and sharing voter data requested from states in recent months.
Toulouse Oliver told Source NM last month she had two main concerns about the federal government’s request for voter data rolls. First: “What is the data being used for outside of verifying citizenship? That’s a big concern, because we’re not in the business of creating citizenship lists or providing information to [Immigration Customs Enforcement] that would potentially harm people who are legally here in the United States. We’ve seen from many, many news reports, there are a number of people that ICE have detained that are either US citizens or have legal status, so to me, that’s deeply concerning.”
She also said the state had provided the federal government with “the publicly available file that anyone has access to,” which does not include Social Security Numbers and only years of birth.
Secretary of State Director of Communications Alex Curtas confirmed that information to Source NM on Wednesday morning.
In a news release Tuesday, US Attorney General Pamela Bondi called “accurate voter rolls” a “cornerstone of fair and free elections,” and said “too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance. The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”
In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said that “states that continue to defy federal voting laws interfere with our mission of ensuring that Americans have accurate voter lists as they go to the polls, that every vote counts equally, and that all voters have confidence in election results. At this Department of Justice, we will not stand for this open defiance of federal civil rights laws.”
Curtas, in a statement provided to Source, said the office had only “just received the DOJ’s complaint letter,” and could not speak to the “content of the lawsuit until we have reviewed it further. However, New Mexico’s election administration is the most secure, accurate, and voter-focused in the entire nation. Any suggestion otherwise is baseless. Our office has already provided the DOJ with publicly available voter data, but we are legally prevented from providing them with personal private voter information. New Mexico state law requires the protection of personal private voter data and Secretary Toulouse Oliver has been consistently clear on that point. Secretary Toulouse Oliver will not compromise the safety of New Mexico’s voter data. Our office will always vigorously defend New Mexico’s voters and the integrity of our election system.”
- 8:42 amThis story was updated shortly after publication to include a comment from the New Mexico Secretary of State's office.
