Pam Bondi Exploited ICE Violence to Control State Elections

The attorney general saw an opportunity to advance the Trump regime’s elections agenda — even if it meant taking advantage of a tragedy.

On Jan. 24, — the same day as federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis — U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz outlining a list of demands she suggested might “bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota.”

Among them was a demand that Minnesota grant the Department of Justice unfettered access to the state’s voter rolls.

Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies on Capitol Hill in October. (C-SPAN)

To be clear, the state’s voter rolls are completely unrelated to the violence resulting from the federal presence in Minneapolis.

So why make the demand? Because this administration continues to escalate its efforts to seize control of our elections — in Minnesota, in Fulton County, Georgia, and throughout the country. Still, as courts throughout the nation reject the DOJ’s requests for private voter data, Bondi saw an opportunity to advance the Trump regime’s elections agenda — even if it meant exploiting a tragedy.

Here’s what you need to know about the Trump administration’s months-long quest to access state voter rolls and what it could mean for the future of free and fair elections.

Early in 2025, federal officials began demanding access to state voter lists — lists that include private information, such as driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers, which are protected from disclosure by federal and state privacy laws. These efforts reflected election deniers’ unfounded conspiracy theories that state voter rolls include large numbers of noncitizens, which could affect election results. Though repeated evidence shows this narrative is false, election deniers have propped it up to diminish confidence in our elections. The data the Trump administration is seeking could be weaponized by future candidates seeking to contest a legitimate election — whether in this year’s midterms or even the 2028 presidential election.

The president’s March 2025 executive order signaled his desire to exert control over our elections. The order directed the attorney general to seek information from each state, ostensibly to allow the Department of Justice to investigate whether ineligible voters are on state rolls. The DOJ then sent letters to chief state election officials in nearly every state, seeking unredacted state voter lists containing private information.

Minnesota joined many other states in pushing back against the DOJ’s demands for two main reasons:

• The DOJ has not cited any federal law that gives it the authority to demand voter lists. The Constitution is clear that Congress and the states, not the president, have the authority to run our elections.

• State and federal privacy laws prohibit the release of certain private information contained in voter lists.

Just eight days before Bondi’s Jan. 24 letter, Minnesota refused a separate DOJ demand for information concerning the state’s same-day registration process, citing similar concerns.

Minnesota, like all states, has strong safeguards to ensure that voter rolls remain accurate and up to date. Election officials routinely compare voter list information with state, multistate, and federal data sources to identify voters who may be ineligible because of a lack of citizenship or other reasons. Election officials investigate flagged voters and remove those confirmed as ineligible from the voter lists. For example, Minnesota officials removed over 217,000 voters from its statewide list between the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Some Trump allies in state legislatures are interpreting heightened federal interest in state voter lists as “marching orders” to enact ill-conceived laws — laws that threaten to remove eligible voters from the rolls heading into this year’s midterm elections. For example, some states may base these voter cancellations on a single, unreliable data source rather than requiring follow-up investigation to prevent the wrongful removal of eligible voters. States may also look to implement a broad “mass challenge” system like Georgia’s, which could threaten tens of thousands of eligible voters. Or they may seek to authorize the cancellation of registrations within 90 days of federal elections, despite protections under federal law.

Minnesota’s resistance to the DOJ’s voter list demand, consistent with that of many other states, led the DOJ to file a federal lawsuit seeking access to the lists. To date, the DOJ has sued 24 states seeking this information.

While litigation against Minnesota is ongoing (with hearings scheduled in March), courts in Georgia, Oregon and California have ruled against the federal government in just the past two weeks.

Bondi’s Jan. 24 letter, implying that a drawdown of federal law enforcement activity in Minnesota could be conditioned on federal access to the state’s voter list notably followed these court decisions against the Trump administration. With a series of failures mounting up in the courts, Bondi’s pivot reveals a dark opportunism — one that shows just how far this administration will go to seize control of our elections.

Recent admissions that federal authorities improperly shared sensitive personal data provide an additional basis for Minnesota and many other states’ continued resistance to unauthorized federal access to state voter lists that include private voter information.

State and local officials across the country must continue to follow the law to protect voter privacy. The Trump administration is prepared to use the threat of federal law enforcement to coerce states into following Trump’s election agenda. Ultimately, the U.S. Constitution is clear: states are responsible for administering our elections, and there is no legal basis for the federal government to manage or access a state’s full, unredacted voter list.

Samantha Tarazi is CEO of Voting Rights Lab, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to securing and strengthening elections in all 50 states.

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