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Voting is a fundamental right of every American citizen. But according to a new lawsuit, your voter registration records may now be stored in a Homeland Security database, matched with your Social Security number and information purchased from data brokers, and potentially linked to a tool ICE uses to locate people.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)’s lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleges that the agency has collected voter records from at least 47 states and enriched that data with records purchased from commercial data brokers.[1]
Here’s everything you should know about EPIC’s lawsuit and how it could affect the Trump administration’s plans to profile its citizens.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the League of Women Voters, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) have jointly filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s collection, maintenance, and use of voter registration records from at least 47 U.S. states.
The complaint, filed in the District of Columbia, alleges that DHS has unlawfully obtained records containing details of a large share of the 174 million registered voters in the U.S. By June 2026, Homeland Security Investigations had taken in 50.6 million records through the Justice Department and another 48.4 million from other sources.
The data may include personally identifiable information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, home addresses, voting history, and political affiliations. The lawsuit claims that this data is also being combined with commercially purchased records from data brokers.
According to a DHS whistleblower disclosure, DHS used Accurint data to match Connecticut voters with their Social Security numbers. Connecticut is a state that refused the DOJ’s demand for its full voter list. A July 6, 2026, HSI report says iLab has already enriched voter files from Missouri, New Mexico, Connecticut, Michigan, Kentucky, and Georgia.
The lawsuit alleges that DHS plans to load this processed voter data into ELITE, a tool built by Palantir and used by ICE to identify, locate, and target individuals based on their immigration history and status.
It’s important to understand that states typically don’t give away Social Security or driver’s license numbers, even when those are included in voter lists. Many states, like Connecticut, refuse to provide them. However, by enriching voter data with commercially purchased information, DHS is potentially building a centralized database containing some of the most private information of American citizens.
The lawsuit alleges that DHS has no legal authority over U.S. citizens’ voter data policies. DHS’s own documentation says that ICE and HSI have no independent authority to administer or oversee elections. Moreover, voter lists are created for election or commercial purposes and have nothing to do with anyone’s citizenship or immigration status.
The lawsuit also alleges four major violations of the Privacy Act:
The complaint points to Nevada as an example. DHS publicly claimed that nearly 16,000 non-citizens were registered to vote there, then cut that number to 185. A Nevada official checked those records, and all 185 turned out to be U.S. citizens.
The lawsuit also accuses DHS of failing to follow procedures required under the Privacy Act. Whenever an agency creates or changes a system of records, it must publish a notice in the Federal Register, known as a System of Records Notice (SORN).
This notice should describe the system, the categories of people and records involved, where the records came from, and how they will be used, along with how people can access and correct their own records.
By adopting the policy, DHS allegedly created a new or revised system of records but didn't publish a SORN or give the public an opportunity to comment on the new database.
This isn’t EPIC’s only challenge to the administration’s voter data efforts. In September 2026, EPIC sued in federal court in Maryland over a March executive order that directed DHS, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the State Department to compile a list of confirmed citizens in all 50 states.
The Maryland case targets a new list the government plans to send to states, whereas the latest lawsuit targets state voter data that DHS has already collected. The judge has not ruled yet but has ordered the government to give 30 days’ notice before using the list, which effectively keeps it out of the November midterms.
This new lawsuit comes after a major court defeat for the administration. On October 9, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan struck down the DOJ’s nationwide policy of collecting state voter rolls and checking them against DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.
The case was brought by Common Cause, and the ruling found that the DOJ had exceeded its legal authority and violated the Privacy Act. The ruling also applies to voter rolls that states had voluntarily handed over to the DOJ. If EPIC’s cases follow the same legal precedent, DHS could face a similar ruling in Maryland and the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit raises concerns about how far the government can go in collecting and combining citizens’ personal information, particularly when voter records are linked to commercial data and immigration enforcement systems.
If the allegations are upheld, the case could have implications for government transparency, data privacy, and the safeguards that protect Americans from inaccurate or unauthorized uses of their information.
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