DOJ demanded Minnesota's same-day voter registration and 'vouching' records over HAVA compliance concerns

On January 2, 2026, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon sent Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon a letter demanding records related to the state's same-day voter registration procedures, including its "vouching" system, under which a registered voter can attest to the residency of up to eight other voters who lack qualifying identification. Dhillon's letter invoked the 1960 Civil Rights Act as granting the department "sweeping authority" to inspect state registration records and claimed Minnesota's process "seems facially inconsistent" with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The demand came amid a broader Justice Department campaign, pursued against dozens of states, to obtain unredacted voter registration data, and followed pressure from conservative activists who had characterized Minnesota's vouching law as enabling fraud. Minnesota's vouching process accounts for less than 0.6% of votes cast and requires a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury from a voucher who lives in the same precinct as the person they vouch for.

Updates

2026-01-16 — Minnesota refused to turn over the requested records [3]

Minnesota's Office of the Secretary of State sent a response letter refusing DOJ's demand. Deputy Secretary of State for Operations Justin R. Erickson wrote that DOJ had "not otherwise provided an adequate legal basis to obtain the data that it seeks" and identified no basis for its claim that Minnesota's election-day registration or vouching laws violate HAVA. Rather than turning over voter data, the state offered to provide DOJ with training guides and educational materials explaining how its procedures already comply with federal law, and asked DOJ to identify which specific HAVA provisions it believed Minnesota's laws violated.