Virginia’s Attorney General Jay Jones stated that the Department of Homeland Security may have violated state laws after a whistleblower accused its employees of misrepresenting themselves on voter lookup tools. The whistleblower report claims DHS employees were trying to find noncitizen voters.
Jones demanded that DHS confirm in writing whether it had directed anyone to access Virginia voters’ information without permission. He wrote that the Virginia Election Code does not permit disclosure of protected information to the federal government without a court order.
The state limits its voter lookup tools to individuals who attest under penalty of law that they are looking up their own records. Jones also asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to preserve all related records, including access logs and training materials.
The whistleblower report includes transcripts of a DHS training for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staffers. The report claims that agents were asked to review 40 individuals per day, giving them about 12 minutes to determine whether each person is a legal voter.
President Donald Trump’s administration has alleged that noncitizen voting could be a significant source of fraud in the November midterm elections. However, research shows that voting by people who are not citizens is extremely rare.