SF Officials Push Back as DOJ Seeks Data on Voters Removed Over Citizenship Rules

The U.S. Department of Justice is demanding that San Francisco election officials share private information about voters whose registration was cancelled for failing to meet citizenship requirements.

That’s according to letters exchanged between the city and the federal department, as well as reports from election officials.

The DOJ’s letter, dated July 9, requested from the Department of Elections five years’ worth of records related to registered voters who were found ineligible due to citizenship status.

Maureen Riordan, a senior official and the letter’s author, also requested a range of personal information about those voters, including driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers and dates of birth.

The move is the latest in a series of actions by the DOJ targeting major California cities over voter data. Last month, the department sued Orange County’s Registrar of Voters for refusing to disclose the requested information.

San Francisco’s Director of Elections, John Arntz, responded to Riordan on July 23, saying he would review the request but asked the department to clarify “whether records produced will be kept confidential within the Department of Justice.”

Arntz, who didn’t respond to KQED’s requests for comment, raised questions about confidentiality that echo broader concerns over fears the Trump administration could use voter data to ramp up aggressive immigration enforcement.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the federal government has no legal standing in the case.

“The DOJ has absolutely no authority under any federal law to compel a state to look for non-civilians on their list, to dictate to states that state policy,” Becker said.

Riordan cited the Help America Vote Act in her letter to Arntz, but the act requires local officials to work with their state, not federal, counterparts.

Becker also noted a pattern in the counties that the DOJ seems to be most aggressively targeting: San Francisco County, Orange County, San Diego County and Los Angeles County — all Democrat strongholds.

“Probably four of the counties with the largest number of Democratic Party voters as opposed to Republican Party voters were targeted,” Becker said. “With little justification.”

While Becker believes the DOJ’s case lacks merit, UC Berkeley Law School’s Emily Zhang was more measured in her assessment.

“If we have some independent state authority not to disclose this information, are those rules superseded, or being preempted, by some federal law?” Zhang asked.

Contrary to claims by the Trump administration, noncitizen voting is “extremely rare,” according to Zhang.

“That’s the kind of fraud that they’re saying is happening,” Zhang said. “Now that they are in power, there is a pressure to kind of prove that claim, to demonstrate that this is actually a problem.”