NYCLU on NYS Passing Legislation to Restore Voting Rights to People on Parole

NEWARK – The League of Women Voters of New Jersey, the Latino Action Network, and an individual New Jersey voter, represented by the ACLU of New Jersey and the ACLU Voting Rights Project, today filed a motion to intervene in U.S. v. Caldwell to prevent the Department of Justice (DOJ) from obtaining New Jersey voters’ personal data. “The DOJ’s demand for New Jersey’s unredacted voter rolls violates the law and would put voters’ private and sensitive information in the hands of officials who have been clear about their plans to abuse it,” said Jeanne LoCicero, legal director for the ACLU of New Jersey. “This is a dangerous attempt by the Trump administration to disenfranchise voters, especially within vulnerable communities.” In July, the DOJ sent its first demand for New Jersey voters registration list, including voters’ full names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers – highly sensitive data that is protected under state and federal law. After the New Jersey Attorney General denied this request several times, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against the state last week. “The federal government has been brazen and reckless in its ongoing efforts to amass sensitive voter information and weaponize it for baseless attacks on voters in the name of discredited election conspiracy theories,” said Javier Robles, president of Latino Action Network. “Naturalized citizens face particular risks. LAN is fighting to protect the privacy and voting rights of our members and all New Jersey voters.” “Protecting voter privacy is essential to preventing disenfranchisement and preserving public confidence in our elections,” said Jesse Burns, executive director of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. “When voters fear that their private information is at risk, participation suffers and trust in the democratic process is weakened. That trust is not optional – it is the foundation of a healthy democracy. The League of Women Voters of New Jersey is proud to stand up against this attack against our voters.” “Voters should never fear that taking part in our democracy will put their personal information at risk,” said Caren Short, director of legal and research for the League of Women Voters. “The Department of Justice’s crazed demands for states’ unredacted voter lists are an alarming overreach that jeopardizes the privacy of millions. The League is proud to step in to ensure that every voter can cast a ballot freely and without intimidation from the federal government that should be protecting them.” “The administration is trying to illegally hoover up voters’ private data to create a national voter database that Congress never authorized," said Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney in the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "They want to be able to harass, intimidate, or improperly challenge people’s votes, chilling civic participation. We won't stand for it. The right to vote is sacred and we will defend it against illegal federal intervention in our elections.” In the brief, the proposed intervener-defendants argue that the DOJ’s request threatens voter privacy and could enable voter disenfranchisement. They seek to advance the interests of civic engagement groups, whose work is compromised when New Jerseyans have reason to distrust the registration process, and individual voters, including naturalized citizens, who risk being targeted by the federal government and whose private data is impacted by this litigation. The motion cites reports indicating that the DOJ intends to create an unauthorized and unlawful national voter database – that may be shared with other federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security – and to use this illicit tool, in conjunction with unreliable DOGE-inspired data-matching and aggregation techniques, to illegally target and challenge voters. This effort creates heightened risks for certain groups of voters, including naturalized citizens and voters with prior felony convictions, whose current eligibility might not be reflected in databases that have out-of-date information.

Voting-rights and civil-rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new Ohio law that threatens to wrongly strip eligible citizens—particularly naturalized citizens—of their right to vote.   The case arises from Ohio Senate Bill 293 (SB 293), a law that mandates aggressive, automated purges of Ohio’s voter rolls based on flawed citizenship data. Under SB 293, state officials are required to conduct frequent database checks and cancel voter registrations for people flagged as “noncitizens”—often without advance notice or a meaningful opportunity to correct mistakes.   Plaintiffs brought this case to stop a system that places thousands of eligible voters at risk of disenfranchisement and undermines fundamental protections guaranteed by federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

ATLANTA — Georgia First, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting voter privacy, safeguarding the integrity of election records, and defending the public’s right of access to judicial proceedings, filed an amicus brief supporting Fulton County’s emergency petition seeking the return of sensitive voter data obtained during a recent FBI raid. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia, and Garland, Samuel & Loeb, P.C. The filing urges the court to order the return of unlawfully obtained voter data or, if not returned, to issue a protective order ensuring some security and protection of voters’ confidential information. The data was seized by the federal government with a warrant obtained in the latest investigation of the 2020 election–an election that has been contested and litigated for years, with no credible evidence of fraud ever found. The data at issue reportedly includes full, unredacted voter files containing names, addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, and other sensitive personal identifiers. “Georgia First knows that the principle of secure, free, and fair elections demands our state and nation responsibly guard election integrity, which is built upon safety, security, and accessibility,” said Natalie Crawford, Founder & Executive Director of Georgia First. “It is with these values top of mind that Georgia First files this brief asking for Court action imperative to preserving public confidence in the elections process. People must always come before politics — throughout Georgia and the United States.” “Voters provide this information with the expectation that it will be used solely to facilitate election administration — not taken without clear reasoning or used as a political pawn,” said Cory Isaacson, legal director at the ACLU of Georgia. “Actions like this risk undermining public trust and chilling civic participation.” “Protecting voter privacy is essential to maintaining confidence in our democratic process,” said Theresa J. Lee, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “Unchecked access to sensitive voter data exposes them to identity theft, security breaches, and more. We cannot allow this federal overreach to continue.” The brief also notes that federal and state privacy laws limit the sharing of sensitive voter details without a clear statutory basis. Collecting such information without defined boundaries or publicly articulated protections erodes confidence in election systems at a time when public trust is already strained. Read the brief here: https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2026/02/Fulton-County-Georgia-First-Amicus-Filed-1.pdf  

The FBI raided Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots and other records from the 2020 election. This unprecedented seizure is a continuation of yearslong efforts to challenge Georgia's 2020 election results, now aided by federal law enforcement. Fulton County is fighting back, suing for the return of the records.