ICE Prepares $5 Million Deal to Build National Voter Database
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is set to award a contract worth up to $5 million to compile voter registration and voting history data from all 50 states, part of a wider Trump administration push that critics say undermines trust in the midterms.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is preparing to award a contract worth up to $5 million to a contractor tasked with building a large-scale national database of voters, citing efforts to combat alleged voter fraud. A document published last week describes the goal as securely gathering publicly available voter registration and voting history files to support fraud detection work by Homeland Security Investigations, ICE's investigative arm.
ICE will initially specify certain states from which it wants data, but the winning contractor must be capable of sourcing information from all 50 states, covering every federal election type — general, primary, runoff, and special elections. Because each state has its own rules for accessing such records, the data obtained could in some cases include party affiliation, which experts warn may infringe on voters' privacy rights. The document states that contractors won't initially be required to collect party affiliation data, though this could change with written direction from the contracting officer, identified as Michael Royer of Homeland Security Investigations.
The final contract is expected to be published next week and awarded shortly after, since its term runs out on September 30. The effort fits into a broader campaign by the Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration, which includes Justice Department demands that states hand over unredacted voter rolls, and threats to cut emergency and counterterrorism funding to states that don't comply with White House election policies.
DHS has also launched a new surge of voter fraud investigations in select states ahead of the midterms. Cases of noncitizen voting remain extremely rare, as confirmed by a recent Georgia investigation that turned up very few instances. Wisconsin governor Tony Evers dismissed DHS's plans as a joke, arguing that elections are a matter for states, not the federal government.
This is not ICE's first move toward accessing voter data — the agency has previously pursued a large contract with Thomson Reuters for its CLEAR database and obtained voter rolls directly from county officials in Texas and North Carolina.
