Improper voter-roll purges
Improper voter-roll purges are voter-roll maintenance practices that produce the disenfranchisement of eligible voters — through aggressive "inactive voter" removals, error-prone matching against other state databases, the elimination of voters based on unverified third-party challenges, or the use of cross-state matching tools known to produce high false-positive rates. Routine, evidence-based list maintenance is required by law; the abuse is maintenance that removes eligible voters at scale, particularly when the affected populations correlate with specific demographics.
Documented entries (2)
2026
DOJ admits in Rhode Island filing that voter-data analysis it denied in court has begun
One day after telling a federal judge at argument in United States v. Amore that no analysis had been conducted on the nonpublic state voter registration data in its possession, DOJ's Civil Rights Division filed a "Clarification of Record" admitting that preliminary internal analysis had in fact begun — specifically, identifying and quantifying "duplicate and deceased" registered voters in each state. The correction came a day after CBS News revealed DOJ was finalizing a deal to share voter-roll data with DHS, and after DOJ attorneys had assured judges in Connecticut and Minnesota that the data was not being analyzed or shared.
DOJ sues five more states for full voter rolls, bringing nationwide campaign to 29 states
On February 26, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced federal lawsuits against Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey for failing to produce their full statewide voter registration lists, bringing the Department's nationwide total to 29 states and the District of Columbia. DOJ asserted authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel production, inspection, and analysis of complete voter rolls — data that can include names, addresses, dates of birth, and partial Social Security or driver's license numbers — to cross-check for "improper registrations." The filings came after federal courts had dismissed several earlier DOJ voter-roll suits.