In an ongoing fight over R.I. voter data, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to R.I. Secretary of State Gregg Amore earlier this month, ordering him to preserve election records from the 2024 federal election.
The letter comes amid a series of lawsuits brought by the DOJ against over 20 states for refusing to produce their unredacted voter files. The lawsuit pursuing R.I. voter data has previously been blocked by a federal judge.
Amore’s office has not responded to the federal government’s request, according to Faith Chybowski, the director of communications and public affairs at the R.I. Department of State.
Advocates are concerned that the DOJ’s attempt to acquire unredacted voter files could violate voter privacy rights, according to Executive Director of Common Cause Rhode Island John Marion.
In several of the lawsuits, including the case against Rhode Island, the DOJ is “continuing to pursue appeals,” Ari Savitzky ’06 — a senior staff attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project — told The Herald.
“It’s a little bit of an odd thing to wait until you’ve already lost the lawsuit and then send a litigation hold letter,” Savitzky said.
The DOJ and the White House did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment.
The ACLU and ACLU of R.I. filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of Common Cause Rhode Island in December 2025.
If the DOJ were to win on appeal, they would gain access to “personally identifiable information,” Marion said. This includes voters’ birthdates, partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
The department could use this information to “try to coerce states into purging large numbers of eligible voters” and “get people kicked off voter rolls by suggesting that they’re here illegally,” Marion said.
The letter requires Rhode Island to maintain sensitive records beyond the 22 months required by federal law.
This 22-month period for the 2024 federal election records “was about to expire for Rhode Island in September,” and the letter came “right before the expiration,” Marion explained.
“This is just the latest attempt by the Trump administration to harass election officials, impose unnecessary demands on them and sow confusion as the midterm elections approach,” Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, wrote in an email to The Herald.
“Like the DOJ’s earlier demand for Rhode Island’s voter files containing sensitive personal information, this latest request could also reveal voter information that the DOJ has no business obtaining,” Steven Brown added.
Savitzky also criticized the statutory basis on which the DOJ is making these requests, arguing that the DOJ is “abusing” the Civil Rights Act of 1960 “to claim that they’re entitled to the state’s voter rolls.” The Act was originally aimed at addressing voter suppression and contains provisions for the federal government to obtain voter data from the states.
“The courts have just unanimously rejected this,” Savitzky added, referring to a federal judge’s blocking of the DOJ lawsuit seeking R.I. voter data in April 2026. “The statute that’s being invoked doesn’t allow the DOJ to access this information without providing the basis and the purpose for the request, and the DOJ hasn’t done that.”
Marion said this latest letter is part of a larger pattern of the DOJ to find evidence of voter fraud that is not actually occurring.
“This demand cannot be viewed in isolation,” Steven Brown wrote. “It is part of a concerted effort to disrupt the election process across the country and potentially disenfranchise thousands of legitimate voters.”
Annika Melwani is a metro senior staff writer covering state politics and justice. She is from New York City and plans on concentrating in English and International and Public Affairs. In her free time, she can be found reading or drinking an iced vanilla latte.
