General Discussion

The DOJ power grab could kick eligible voters off the rolls
The DOJ is claiming authority under the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA) and Civil Rights Act of 1960 to try to seize state voter data. It is weaponizing laws that were passed to protect the vote in order to try to suppress it. While the NVRA and the Civil Rights Act do give the DOJ some limited authority to oversee states’ list maintenance procedures, as a federal court recently held, they do not give the DOJ the power to demand states’ full, unredacted voter rolls or to select voters to be kicked off the rolls.

The Constitution gives states the authority to run elections, not the federal government, and states have reliable processes to maintain voter rolls on an ongoing basis — bipartisan consensus agrees on this. Nevertheless, a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) sent to more than a dozen states would give the DOJ the power to handpick voters for removal, an unprecedented move that could give the agency boundless power beyond its scope, and leave hundreds or thousands of people disenfranchised.