BOISE, ID – After Idaho’s top election official gave the federal government a list of all Idaho registered voters that scrubbed their personal information, the U.S. Department of Justice says it wants the unredacted list.
The Justice Department offered Idaho a deal that would let the federal law enforcement agency audit the state’s voter rolls. And a Justice Department attorney hinted the agency could sue Idaho — like it has sued 23 other states — if election officials don’t turn over the full records that the Trump administration demanded. That’s according to communications in December that the Idaho Capital Sun obtained through a public records request.
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Since then, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said his office and the Justice Department have been negotiating over whether and how to share Idaho’s full data — which he portrayed as a complex legal issue. He said he isn’t nervous that his office will be sued, but it could happen.
“Every indication to me is that we are having a good dialogue. And they seem to be willing, there’s a willingness with them to engage with us in that dialogue,” McGrane told the Idaho Capital Sun in an interview Tuesday. “And so at the moment, I’m not nervous that we’re going to be sued, but it’s always a possibility.”
In September, the U.S. Justice Department asked states to turn over their full voter registration records — with identifiable information on registered voters.
The Justice Department says it wants Idaho’s data to ensure election integrity. But as the Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement, some fear how the federal government will use the data. Trump has falsely claimed that droves of noncitizens vote, a crime which is actually rare nationally and in Idaho.
The Justice Department did not directly respond to the Idaho Capital Sun’s questions about its negotiations with Idaho, or whether the agency would sue the state.
“Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. “The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”
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After the Justice Department first asked for Idaho’s data, McGrane only gave the Justice Department access to a de-identified voter registration list, which the agency routinely shares with people and organizations that request it.
“After consulting with the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, we will be sharing a copy of our publicly available file, which does not contain any personally identifiable information,” McGrane wrote to the Justice Department in a Sept. 22 letter. “We welcome a dialogue with your office to continue to discuss the broader efforts to ensure the accuracy of Idaho’s voter rolls.”
But more than a month later, the Justice Department re-upped its request for Idaho’s full voter rolls.
On Dec. 4, David Vandenberg, an attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, was calling to follow up on getting Idaho’s full voter registration list.
“You may have seen in the news that we have sued six states earlier this week for refusing to provide their voter registration lists,” Vandenberg said in a Dec. 4 voicemail to former Idaho Chief Deputy Secretary of State Robert McQuade. “And we’re preparing additional lawsuits. I’d like to keep everyone out of that as much as possible. But I haven’t heard anything back from you all.”
Days later, on Dec. 8, he sent an email to McQuade saying the Justice Department “is requiring an unredacted copy of Idaho’s statewide voter-registration list by Friday, December 12, 2025, as previously demanded.”
Less than an hour later, McQuade replied by detailing Idaho’s efforts to purge noncitizens from the state’s voter roll, which stemmed from a 2024 executive order by Gov. Brad Little.
“After working closely with the Idaho Department of Transportation and using” a federal immigration database called SAVE, “we worked to verify citizenship for all of Idaho’s 1.1 million registered voters. Following this work, we provided data on approximately 30 individuals to the Idaho State Police (ISP) for investigation as possible non-citizen registrants/voters,” McQuade wrote.
The number of suspected noncitizen voters in Idaho referred for prosecution was even smaller.
“It’s our understanding that once the investigation was completed, around August or September of this year, ISP referred about a dozen or so folks to the U.S. Attorney’s Office here in Idaho for possible prosecution,” he added. “We have not heard where these investigations have led since.”
The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office is still verifying citizenship “on all newly registered voters prior to each election to ensure only citizens vote,” he added.
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare gave the feds fully identifiable data on SNAP enrolees
Months before the Justice Department sought state voter registration lists, the U.S. Department of Agriculture asked states for help to build a database for managing a food benefits program called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.
USDA told states its request — stemming from an executive order in March by President Donald Trump that focused on stopping fraud, waste and abuse — was to build a database meant to “strengthen SNAP and government program integrity,” according to a July 9 letter USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins sent Idaho.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare gave USDA identifiable information, including enrollee’s names, addresses, birth days, Social Security numbers and eligibility information like income and expense data, agency spokesperson AJ McWhorter told the Idaho Capital Sun.
Like the Justice Department’s request for voter rolls, USDA’s request was a first for Idaho.
“This is the first time that USDA has asked for information on our entire caseload,” McWhorter said.
Asked what the USDA has done with Idaho’s SNAP data, a USDA spokesperson who requested to not be named said: “We will not comment on pending litigation.”
Why Idaho’s Secretary of State says sharing the state’s full voter roll is complicated
In an interview Tuesday, McGrane said his office has since been in talks with the Justice Department. The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office hasn’t shared more data or promised to yet, he said.
The Justice Department also in December offered Idaho a deal to share the data that would direct state election officials to remove voters deemed allegedly ineligible from the state’s voter registration roll. The Justice Department has offered similar, confidential deals to at least 11 other states, Stateline reported.
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Idaho’s deal would allow the Justice Department to audit the state’s voter rolls, and would direct state election officials to purge alleged ineligible voters. McGrane said he hasn’t signed the deal. He said he hasn’t seen the Justice Department do this under any other presidential administration.
But he said he’s “very confident in Idaho’s processes for verifying voter information with very clean voter rolls.”
Part of Idaho’s talks with the Justice Department revolve around legal issues specific to Idaho around sharing voter lists, McGrane said. For one, because Idaho offers same-day voter registration on election days, the state is exempt from the National Voter Registration Act, which McGrane said is among the main authorities that the Justice Department has leveraged to get voter data from states. He said Idaho law also limits how the state shares voter lists with third-party entities, requiring certain security measures.
In September, when McGrane only shared Idaho’s redacted voter list, he touted Idaho’s efforts to purge noncitizens from voter rolls. As part of that, his office already works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to verify citizenship.
“It’s not as clear what DOJ’s intentions are at this point, other than saying they’re auditing all the states,” McGrane said. “And so we’re just making sure that we do that, and that any data that we would share with them is handled securely, and that it’s protecting voter information.”
In a statement last week, Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said the Trump administration is prioritizing enforcing election laws.
“Enforcing the Nation’s elections laws is a priority in this administration and in the Civil Rights Division. Congress gave the Justice Department authority under” several federal laws, including the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act, “to ensure that states have proper voter registration procedures and programs to maintain clean voter rolls containing only eligible voters in federal elections,” she said. “The recent request by the Civil Rights Division for state voter rolls is pursuant to that statutory authority, and the responsive data is being screened for ineligible voter entries.”
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.
