Trump Administration Secretly Shared Voter Data with Election Denial Groups, Documents Reveal

Documents obtained by the advocacy nonprofit Democracy Forward through public records requests reveal previously undisclosed correspondence between officials at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and an organization linked to efforts to undermine the 2020 election results. The files detail how sensitive voter data was transferred between the two entities in a covert arrangement.

While most names and details in the emails were heavily redacted by the government, one message included an unredacted line from the unnamed organization:

“We live for this!”

Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman criticized the administration’s actions, stating:

The Trump-Vance administration continues to hide what it is doing with Americans’ personal data, who it has unlawfully shared it with, and why.

Earlier this year, the administration acknowledged a similar scheme involving DOGE. In January, the Social Security Administration (SSA) revealed in a court filing that associates of Elon Musk had engaged in unauthorized communications and data planning with election denial groups. The administration did not name the groups involved, though one stood out prominently.

Within weeks of Donald Trump’s second term beginning, the election denial group True the Vote reached out to federal employees assigned to Musk’s temporary advisory body, DOGE. Their public appeal, posted to their website in early March 2025, read:

Given DOGE’s mandate to enhance governmental efficiency and your recent insights into federal data discrepancies, we urge you to extend your investigative rigor to the nation’s voter registration systems. True the Vote stands ready to assist in this effort.

True the Vote later denied any involvement in the scandal following the SSA’s admission.

The arrangement appears to be part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to access voter rolls in all 50 states, potentially exposing sensitive data on tens of millions of Americans. The Justice Department has filed lawsuits against 30 states to compel the release of this data ahead of the midterms. To date, more than a dozen Republican-led states have complied or agreed to do so, including:

• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Indiana
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Nebraska
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Wyoming

However, courts have blocked the administration’s efforts in multiple states. Judges have dismissed cases in Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Oregon. In Arizona, a Trump-appointed judge ruled that detailed voter registration rolls are “not a document subject to request by the Attorney General” under federal law.