1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to refuse any Department of Justice demands for confidential voter roll data and to vigorously defend our state's constitutional authority over election administration. The Trump administration is currently suing 24 states plus Washington D.C. to force access to voter rolls containing private information including addresses and Social Security numbers. Attorney General Pam Bondi has sent letters demanding all 50 states open their confidential voter rolls to federal scrutiny. This would create the first-ever national voter database, an unprecedented federal intrusion into state election authority. The stated justification is combating voter fraud, but experts confirm that actual voter fraud by individual citizens is vanishingly rare and essentially nonexistent as a factor in U.S. elections. Ashiya Brown, former election security specialist for Michigan's secretary of state and current state director of All Voting is Local, describes this as an overall plan to weaponize the Department of Justice to disenfranchise voters. The Brennan Center for Justice warns this database could be used to promote false claims about election fraud, target political opponents, or force states to remove voters from the rolls. The administration is refashioning the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements tool into a platform for scrutinizing voter rolls, with indications that data would be shared with the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement. This poses severe cybersecurity and privacy risks for every registered voter in our state. Constitutionally, elections are administered solely by states, not the federal government. While some Republican-led states have complied voluntarily, Colorado and Wisconsin rejected similar demands and were subsequently sued. With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, Samantha Tarazi, CEO of Voting Rights Lab, warns that President Trump is preparing to use the power of his office to interfere in the 2026 election. I urge you to categorically refuse these demands, join other states in legal resistance, and publicly commit to protecting voter privacy and state election authority.