‘Take a hike’: Colorado Secretary of State pushes back against DOJ request for voter information
DENVER, Colo. (KRDO) -- The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the Colorado Secretary of State to share what the office says is "sensitive, unredacted voter information." The Secretary of State's Office is pushing back.
"We will not comply with the Trump Department of Justice’s request for Coloradans’ sensitive voting information. The DOJ can take a hike; it does not have a legal right to the information. Colorado will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections and hurt the American people," said Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
The Secretary of State's Office says that the DOJ is asking for voter data, which includes a voter’s full name, date of birth, residential address, and complete state driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
"Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance," said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a release.
On Tuesday, the DOJ announced that it is suing six new states for their refusal to share voter registration rolls. Those states include Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
"Our federal elections laws ensure every American citizen may vote freely and fairly,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. "States that continue to defy federal voting laws interfere with our mission of ensuring that Americans have accurate voter lists as they go to the polls, that every vote counts equally, and that all voters have confidence in election results. At this Department of Justice, we will not stand for this open defiance of federal civil rights laws."
According to the Colorado Secretary of State's Office, the DOJ has now sued at least 14 states for refusal to provide voter registration information or failure to provide information regarding their voter list maintenance procedures.
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