‘Cowards’: State leaders condemn Trump admin election actions

The usually staid and bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State winter conference descended into rancorous dueling press conferences last week, after several administration officials promised to attend, only to withdraw at the eleventh hour.

Typically, the event brings together state leaders and federal officials to discuss elections, cybersecurity and business-related issues. But the recent federal raid of the Fulton County, Georgia elections offices, observed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard apparently in search of alleged voter fraud during the 2020 election, as well as ongoing Department of Justice lawsuits demanding states turn over election data and records, had many officials on edge.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a letter that federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement would withdraw from Minneapolis if, among other demands, the state turns over its voter rolls to the DOJ.

Gabbard, Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had been announced on stage at the NASS conference as attending for a “fireside chat” by Jared Borg, special assistant to the president and deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. But none showed up, prompting a furious response from Democratic secretaries of state who had anticipated asking the trio about the data lawsuits, the raid in Georgia and ICE’s continued presence in their communities.

“We all know that a lot of the biggest bullies are cowards,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said during an impromptu press conference at the event in Washington, D.C. “Noem, Bondi and Gabbard are cowards for not showing up today and answering the questions from elections officials from across the country about this administration's abuses of power.”

A NASS spokesperson blamed “scheduling conflicts” for Gabbard’s withdrawal from the event, and referred all other questions to the officials’ respective agencies. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.

Initially, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon from the DOJ and Heather Honey, deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, had been slated to address the conference during a segment on elections but withdrew. Some Republicans condemned the administration’s behavior in their absence.

“The things that have been said publicly, frankly, are quite appalling,” Utah Republican Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said during a conference session with Borg, the only federal official to speak publicly at the conference. “[Bondi has] pretty much slandered all of us. To me, that's problematic to publicly claim that secretaries of state are not doing our jobs and that the federal government has to do it for us.”

DOJ has demanded voter data from almost every state and Washington, D.C., and 11 states have complied by providing their full statewide voter registration lists, which include sensitive information like driver’s license details and Social Security numbers. Judges have dismissed DOJ lawsuits to force the lists’ release in California and Oregon, while a judge also dismissed a suit in Georgia that has since been refiled.

The response from state officials to the DOJ’s efforts has been furious. In a joint letter, more than 20 state attorneys general assailed Bondi for “massive federal overreaches and intrusions on state sovereignty and individual privacy.” Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas said during the press conference coordinated by the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State that she had hoped to hear why the federal government needed such data.

“The American people need to know why the federal government is extorting state leaders for voter roll data in exchange for immigration activities,” Thomas said. “The American people need to know why the federal government needs their private information, basically without their consent, and asking us to break state laws.”

State agencies have been concerned for a while about the federal government’s data sharing demands, not just voter registration but also recipients of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Their concerns frequently center around resident privacy, something that came into full view as it was revealed that  Department of Government Efficiency employees improperly accessed and may have shared data from the Social Security Administration.

That SSA data was allegedly accessed as President Donald Trump and his administration hunt for evidence of voter fraud. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said during a session at the NASS conference that an “apparent goal” of all this data collection is also a “national database of citizenship.”

“I say apparent, because it seems to be the only logical conclusion that is that the administration is attempting to compile a database that is totally complete, which is a direct violation of the Privacy Act of 1974,” Fontes said.

Republicans who have cooperated with the federal government’s demands said they are doing so under an obligation to comply with the Civil Rights Act’s requirements to have clean voter rolls. Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray said he is “excited to continue the collaboration” with the Trump administration.

“I really appreciate the accountability and the oversight from the Trump administration, and in making sure that the law has been, was, and will be followed,” he said during a press conference of his own at the NASS conference. “That's what we expect from law enforcement, and that's what the Trump administration is doing, making sure that there is accountability.”

Federal legislators called on their state counterparts to hold strong. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who was previously its secretary of state, said they must “stay bipartisan and united in our pushback,” especially as there appears to be “no plan for how to secure the data, no plan for how they're going to utilize the data.”

“I personally assume the worst, and have to prepare for the worst if they would get access to their data,” Padilla said.