SC can give voter data to Trump administration, state Supreme Court says -- The U.S. Department of Justice asked for the information as part of a nationwide push for voter information
COLUMBIA — South Carolina can begin giving voter information to the federal government, the state Supreme Court said in a Thursday opinion.
The six-page opinion overturned a circuit court judge’s decision last week that the state must hold onto its data on 3.3 million registered voters — including names, birthdays, addresses, drivers’ license numbers and final digits of Social Security numbers — while a lawsuit plays out over privacy concerns.
The U.S. Department of Justice asked for that information last month as part of a push by the Trump administration to get every state’s voter rolls.
Under the Supreme Court’s decision, the state Election Commission could hand over its voter information right away, said Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, who is representing a voter suing to stop the release of her personal information.
The actual timeline is unclear.
“The SEC will continue working with the DOJ to develop a formal memorandum of understanding that ensures any data sharing is conducted in full compliance with the law while protecting the privacy of South Carolina voters,” agency spokesman John Michael Catalano said in a statement. “We will provide updates as soon as more information is available regarding a timeline for next steps.”
The agency began working to comply with the Trump administration’s request Aug. 27, three weeks after it sent the first of two letters asking for the information, spokesman John Michael Catalano said previously. The Department of Justice set a due date of Sept. 5, two days after the circuit court judge’s order barred the state from complying.
The Supreme Court’s order, which all five justices signed, didn’t get into the questions of privacy raised in the lawsuit. Instead, justices focused on procedural issues in the order barring the state from fulfilling the request.
Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein didn’t explain in her order what sort of damage Calhoun County voter Anne Crook, who filed the lawsuit, might face if the state gives her information to the federal government, according to the Supreme Court’s order. Goodstein also failed to explain whether she believed the lawsuit was likely to succeed, which is required for a court to intervene, the order reads.
Goodstein told the Election Commission not to comply with the request before the agency had even received notice of the lawsuit. That on its own violates longstanding court precedent, the state’s highest court said.
(The lawsuit was filed Aug. 29, just ahead of the Labor Day weekend. Goodstein’s order came the day after Labor Day.)
She scheduled a hearing for Wednesday morning in Aiken County but canceled it after the state Election Commission appealed to the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit will continue. Justices made it clear Crook can still ask for a hearing in her case. Where and when that might happen is still to be determined.
“We still are going to get our day in court,” said Hutto, D-Orangeburg.
Governor joins the lawsuit
Although the initial lawsuit didn’t name Gov. Henry McMaster as a defendant, he asked to join in defense of the state Election Commission.
His office praised Thursday’s opinion as a win for the state.
“Gov. McMaster has said all along that this case was improper,” spokesman Brandon Charochak said in a statement. “Today’s ruling is a major victory for South Carolina.”
Last week, McMaster’s attorneys wrote the federal request “should not be a big deal.”
Anyone can purchase partial voter records, including full names, addresses and birthdays. Also, federal agencies — including the IRS and Social Security Administration — already have most of the information requested, they argued in a motion filed last Thursday.
“The federal government already has Crook’s full Social Security number (as well as every other South Carolinian’s) because the federal government issues those Social Security numbers,” the governor’s attorney wrote. “It’s untenable (to put it mildly) to insist that the State cannot tell the federal government something that the federal government already knows.”
While it’s true that some government agencies have access to personal information, the Department of Justice clearly isn’t among them, Hutto said. If it were, the agency wouldn’t be asking for states to provide that information, he said.
McMaster told reporters last week that he would like to enter a formal agreement with the Department of Justice making it clear that the agency will respect voters’ privacy rights.
However, those privacy rights don’t extend to voter registration information, his attorneys argued in a court filing. South Carolinians have a right to privacy only from electronic surveillance and in cases of bodily autonomy, McMaster’s filing reads.
Federal law gives government agencies the authority to get whatever data they need to fulfill their obligations, McMaster’s attorneys argued. That includes the Department of Justice, which is tasked with enforcing voter laws, his office wrote.
“Nothing is unreasonable about giving the federal government information it already has (Social Security numbers) or information that Congress has authorized it to obtain (driver’s license numbers),” the filing reads.
Those laws apply only if the agency has a good reason to get the information, which the Department of Justice hasn’t proven, Hutto argued.
If the Department of Justice said exactly what it planned to do with people’s personal information, voters like Crook might not be so concerned about violations to their privacy, Hutto said.
“Why do they need to know?” Hutto said. “That is the very data everyone says we need to safeguard from identity theft.”
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
DOJ is sharing state voter roll lists with Homeland Security
BY: JONATHAN SHORMAN - SEPTEMBER 15, 2025 1:21 PM
The U.S. Department of Justice is sharing state voter roll information with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizens, the Trump administration confirmed.
The data sharing comes after Justice Department attorneys this summer demanded that election officials in nearly two dozen states turn over their voter lists, alarming some Democratic state secretaries of state and election experts. They have voiced fears about how the Trump administration planned to use the data. Even some Republican secretaries of state have declined to provide their full voter lists.
Homeland Security in an unsigned statement to Stateline called information sharing essential to “scrub aliens from voter rolls” and said the federal government was “finally doing what it should have all along — sharing information to solve problems.”
“This collaboration with the DOJ will lawfully and critically enable DHS to prevent illegal aliens from corrupting our republic’s democratic process and further ensure the integrity of our elections nationwide. Elections exist for the American people to choose their leaders, not illegal aliens,” the statement reads.
The Justice Department said in its own statement that state voter roll data provided in response to requests from the department’s Civil Rights Division is “being screened for ineligible voter entries.”
Noncitizen voting is extremely rare. One study of the 2016 election placed the prevalence of noncitizen voting at 0.0001% of votes cast.
The data sharing marks a next step in President Donald Trump’s efforts to exert more federal influence over state-administered elections. Trump signed an executive order earlier this year that sought to require individuals to provide proof-of-citizenship documents to register to vote, a rule quickly blocked in federal court. He has also threatened to sign another executive order attempting to restrict mail ballots.
At least 10 states have either provided publicly available data or given the department directions on how to request public data. On Friday, Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales, a Republican, confirmed to reporters that he had provided the Justice Department with all voter information requested, including driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers — making Indiana the first known state to have supplied personally sensitive data.
While the administration didn’t describe how Homeland Security will use the voter rolls to search for noncitizens, the agency operates a powerful program, Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, that can identify the immigration or citizenship status of an individual.
SAVE was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of Homeland Security, this spring refashioned it into a platform that can scan states’ voter rolls if officials upload the data.
In the past, SAVE could only search one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches, allowing officials to potentially feed into it information on millions of registered voters. SAVE checks that information against a series of federal databases and reports back whether it can verify someone’s immigration status.
Since May, it also can draw upon Social Security data, transforming the program into a tool that can confirm U.S. citizenship because Social Security records for many, but not all, Americans include the information.
As the Justice Department has sought state voter rolls this summer, letters from the department’s attorneys to state officials in many instances have demanded full lists of registered voters that include sensitive personal information such as driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. At least 22 states were asked for some data, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which is tracking the requests.
Some states have turned over publicly available voter files or offered directions on how to request them. Others have flat-out refused the requests.
“The Department of Justice hasn’t shown any good reason for its fishing expedition for sensitive voter information on every American,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said in a news release Monday announcing that her office had rejected the Justice Department’s second request for her state’s voter data.
Justin Levitt, who served as senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights in the Biden White House and is now a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, said that he has no confidence that Homeland Security would act carefully with any data received.
Levitt, speaking with Stateline on Wednesday before the data sharing was confirmed, voiced concern that the Justice Department was “serving as a stalking horse” for other entities within the government.
“The fact that they’re having to sneak through the back door rather than knocking on the front door tells you that there’s improper procedures going on,” Levitt said.
This story was updated to add information from Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales confirming his state shared voter roll information with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Indiana Capital Chronicle’s Whitney Downard contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.
Jonathan Shorman covers democracy for Stateline, including elections, voting rights, fights over state vs. federal power, civil liberties and more.
