The Trump administration is suing Idaho’s top election official, who refused to hand over sensitive data for about 1 million registered voters, including partial Social Security and driver’s license numbers.
The Idaho Capital Sun reported on the lawsuit Tuesday.
The lawsuit targeting Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane underscores deeper issues surrounding privacy versus federal oversight and debates ahead of the May primary and November general election.
Idaho has joined other states resisting similar requests from the feds, who have asked McGrane and other secretaries of state to hand over unredacted voter files, including sensitive personal identifiers.
The justification: ensuring election integrity and verifying voter eligibility.
Many state election officials “are choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work,” Justice Department Civil Rights Division Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement.
McGrane said Idaho law restricts disclosure and that the state has a responsibility to protect voter data.
Idaho has already provided a public version of voter files with scrubbed data and worked with the feds to verify citizenship. McGrane’s office flagged about 30 possible noncitizens to be investigated as part of state-level election integrity checks.
Noncitizen voting is rare in Idaho and nationwide, though President Donald Trump claims otherwise.
Some of the lawsuits targeting secretaries of state have been dismissed, including in Oregon, California and Michigan.
McGrane, a Republican running for re-election, expressed confidence in Idaho’s election oversight.
“Idahoans have confidence in how we run our elections,” he said.
The outcome could determine how much control states retain over voter data — and how much of Idahoans’ personal information the federal government can access.
Here’s the lawsuit:
