Colorado secretary of state refuses to hand over election records to DOJ
Colorado will not comply with the U.S. Department of Justice’s request to share certain voter information, Secretary of State Jena Griswold said on Wednesday.
Federal authorities have sought voter data from more than two dozen states, framing it as part of an effort to ensure the security of elections.
“The DOJ can take a hike; it does not have a legal right to the information,” she said. “Colorado will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections and hurt the American people.”
Griswold said the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division contacted her office earlier this week, requesting an agreement to share some voter data, including full names, dates of birth, residential addresses, and driver’s license numbers.
An email sent to Deputy Secretary of State Andrew Kline on Dec. 1 said the DOJ is prepared to enter into a memorandum of understanding with Colorado to share a “nonpublic, unredacted voter registration list.”
Kline responded to the email the following day, saying Colorado “will not be producing unredacted voter files or signing the MOU.”
The federal agency made a similar request to the state last May, after which Griswold shared publicly available data.
Trump officials previously said they need complete voter registration data to ensure states are complying with federal election laws. Griswold and nine other secretaries of state wrote a letter to the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security requesting more information. Specifically, the secretaries of state wanted to know if DOJ has shared or will share the information with Homeland Security.
The officials also alleged that DOJ and DHS staff have shared “misleading and at times contradictory” information with elections officials regarding voter data collection. They added that transmitting the information to another federal agency raises “serious Privacy Act concerns and risks improper dissemination of and access to sensitive voter data.”
Griswold’s office said neither the DOJ nor DHS has responded to the letter.
The Justice Department on Tuesday sued six more states in its ongoing campaign to obtain detailed voter data and other election information.
The department announced it is suing Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington over their “failure” to produce statewide voter registration lists.
Tuesday’s actions bring to at least 14 the number of states the Justice Department has sued in its quest for the voter information. As of Thursday, Colorado is not one of them.
“Our federal elections laws ensure every American citizen may vote freely and fairly,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the department’s Civil Rights Division. “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.”
The requests included basic questions about the procedures states use to comply with federal voting laws, such as how they identify and remove duplicate voter registrations or deceased or otherwise ineligible voters. Certain questions were more state-specific and referenced data points or perceived inconsistencies from a recent survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.

