In a move that surprised absolutely no one who’s been paying attention for the last decade, Texas quietly handed over its entire voter roll — all 18.4 million of us — to the Trump administration’s Department of Justice just before Christmas. You know, as a stocking stuffer. Included in the data dump: dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Totally normal stuff to casually mail to Washington.
The DOJ says it needs this treasure trove of personal information to “enforce election law” and make sure states are keeping their voter rolls tidy. Texas officials say they complied because federal law says they should. Critics say this looks less like routine oversight and more like building a national voter database with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The DOJ has already sued 23 states and D.C. for refusing to play along, while Texas proudly raised its hand and said, “We’ve got a PDF for that.”
Naturally, privacy advocates and election officials around the country are raising red flags. The concern isn’t just who gets the data — it’s what happens next. A proposed agreement seen in other states would allow the DOJ to flag “anomalies,” give states 45 days to fix them, and then demand the voter list again. Translation: “Hey, we think these people shouldn’t vote — care to explain yourselves?” Wisconsin said no thanks and got sued. Texas said yes, but pinky-swore it wouldn’t violate federal voter protection laws.
Enter the Democratic National Committee, which is now threatening legal action, arguing that this whole arrangement could violate federal law and lead to eligible voters being purged — especially problematic with a March primary, May runoff, and November general election already on the calendar. Federal law explicitly limits voter roll purges close to elections, but apparently that’s just another suggestion Texas is confident it can explain away later.
As of now, Texas hasn’t released the full agreement spelling out exactly what the DOJ can do with the data or how aggressively it can lean on the state to “clean things up.” So voters are left trusting that the same people who brought us years of voter fraud hysteria will handle millions of Texans’ personal information responsibly and without political motive.
But hey — if there’s one thing Texans love more than privacy, it’s being told “don’t worry about it” while someone else holds their Social Security number.