ICE documents reveal the scale of voter-file investigations
Newly released internal documents describe immigration investigators acquiring and analysing tens of millions of voter files. Homeland Security Investigations distributed investigative leads among field offices and examined voter-registration organisations. Several reviews found no wrongdoing. The documents distinguish investigative activity from proof of unlawful voting, and their overlapping datasets cannot be added together as a count of individual voters.
Internal documents released on October 7 describe the acquisition and analysis of tens of millions of voter files by Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of the US immigration-enforcement agency ICE. Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy organisation, obtained the documents through litigation over access to information. The disclosed material details how the agency collected data and developed investigative leads assigned to its field offices.[1], [2]
Large datasets and an uncertain overlap
A June report describes 50.6 million documents from the Justice Department and 48.4 million from other information sources linked to senior Homeland Security official Heather Honey. The second set’s origins and the overlap between the two sets were not established. Their combined volume therefore cannot be read as a count of individual voters. Homeland Security defended its work on publicly available voter files and its stated aim of investigating unlawful voting.[1]
Several organisational reviews found no wrongdoing
Investigators examined voter-registration organisations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and considered using undercover agents. The documents do not establish that this proposed tactic was carried out. Some New Jersey reviews found no adverse information, another nonprofit review found no suspicious financial activity, and an Ohio inquiry closed after its leads were exhausted. By late May, the agency had opened 418 voter-fraud cases and made 64 administrative arrests; 318 cases had not been referred for prosecution.[1]
