EPIC and LULAC Ask Court to Halt DHS and DOJ’s Scheme to Weaponize Voter Data Ahead of Election Day

EPIC and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) filed a motion Thursday, October 29^th, for a temporary restraining order to block the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from transmitting data to states and localities about registered voters whom the agencies claim are “likely noncitizens.” DOJ has already sent lists and demands letters to California and Washington and has indicated that more are coming before Election Day. The plaintiffs have asked the court to rule by November 2^nd.  

With midterm voting well underway, DOJ and DHS have “deployed an illegal policy trying to dictate who gets to vote.” The agencies have been illegally accumulating and augmenting personal information on voters nationwide in the name of eliminating “voter fraud.” This motion asks the court to issue an emergency order stopping the DOJ and DHS’s Voter Data Transmission Policy, under which the agencies would send states and localities lists of voters flagged as likely noncitizens, together with demands that election administrators investigate identified voters, segregate identified voters’ ballots and refuse to tabulate the identified voters’ ballots until their citizenship status can be determined. No statute authorizes this, the administrations’ claims of widespread voter fraud continue to be unsubstantiated, and the lists have repeatedly proven to be unreliable. DOJ and DHS’s policy threatens millions of Americans’ fundamental voting and privacy rights, particularly for Latino and Immigrant communities, and risks the integrity of our elections. 

EPIC, LULAC, and the League of Women Voters originally sued the defendants on October 15 in League of Women Voters et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al. over DOJ and DHS’s unlawful Voter Data Policy. Along with the TRO, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint.  

EPIC has long worked to protect the privacy, speech, and voting rights of Americans. Since January 2025, EPIC has been tracking and challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to access, consolidate, and weaponize the personal information of Americans at the federal and state level. Through public analysis, press briefings, and strategic litigation, EPIC is highlighting the severe risks of federal voter data dragnets.