Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times,
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent warning letters to election officials in 10 states on Friday, saying proposed agreements with the Justice Department to share unredacted voter registration files and act on list maintenance concerns could violate federal election law.
The letters went to election offices in Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. In each, the DNC said the Justice Department indicated the state had entered or could soon enter a memorandum of understanding that “appears to require violations” of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
A Justice Department spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email, “The Department of Justice has statutory authority to enforce our nation’s election laws and protect the integrity of our electoral system. Organizations should think twice before interfering in a federal investigation and encouraging the obstruction of justice, unless they’d like to join the dozens of states that are learning their lesson in federal court.”
Earlier this week, the Justice Department said it had sued Arizona and Connecticut, alleging the states failed to turn over their full voter registration rolls for federal inspection. DOJ said the filings brought its nationwide total to 23 states plus the District of Columbia in lawsuits tied to access to statewide voter registration lists.
In Arizona, the lawsuit says U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi requested the voter registration list from Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in July 2025 and later extended the deadline to September 2025. The suit says Fontes refused, citing state and federal privacy laws, and asks a court to compel production under the Civil Rights Act’s information-production provisions.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told The Epoch Times that “Arizonans’ private voter registration information is not up for grabs,” and Fontes said he declined due to privacy concerns.
In Connecticut, the lawsuit says Bondi requested the list in August 2025 and then demanded it in December 2025, but Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas said state law bars release of the information sought. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the state tried to work with DOJ but “rather than communicating productively with us, they rushed to sue.”
The DNC’s letters to the 10 states pointed to a proposed agreement that would require a state to agree that “within forty-five (45) days of receiving notice from the Justice Department of any issues, insufficiencies, inadequacies, deficiencies, anomalies, or concerns,” the state would “clean” its voter registration list or data “by removing ineligible voters” and resubmit updated data to DOJ for verification.
The party argued that a “45-Day Removal Demand” could conflict with NVRA provisions that govern how states remove voters based on suspected changes in residence and that restrict certain systematic list-maintenance activity close to federal elections. In a longer legal argument, the DNC said the NVRA’s affirmative list-maintenance mandate requires a “reasonable effort” to remove certain categories of ineligible registrants and argued the proposed demand goes beyond what federal law requires.
The letters also sought records from the states, including documents related to any DOJ agreement and information about any voters removed, inactivated, or contacted based on the 45-day demand or other DOJ-provided information, including the voter’s party affiliation and the purported basis of ineligibility. The letters asked for responsive records dating from Jan. 1, 2025, to the present.
The DNC signaled it could escalate the matter but said the current letters were not the formal notice that can precede litigation under the NVRA. In the Alabama letter, the DNC wrote that the state may not yet have violated the NVRA and said the letter “does not constitute written notice of violations of the NVRA,” adding that the party “stands ready to issue a formal notice” if evidence of ongoing violations emerges.
The DNC said its concerns were triggered, in part, by statements made in a Dec. 4, 2025, federal court hearing. In the Mississippi letter, the DNC cited a transcript and wrote that the acting chief of the DOJ Voting Section told a judge the state had “expressed … a willingness” to enter a proposed memorandum concerning voter registration list maintenance.
The White House defended the Justice Department’s authority to press states on voter roll maintenance.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Epoch Times in an email, “The Civil Rights Act, National Voting Rights Act, and Help America Vote Act all give the Department of Justice full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls. President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the 10 state officials addressed in the letters but did not hear back prior to publication.
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