ICE Seeks $5 Million Contract to Harvest National Voter Data for Fraud Probes

POLICY WIRE — Washington, D.C. — Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to allocate up to $5 million to hire an outside firm to gather voter information and ballot histories for nearly every person in the United States.

The initiative is part of a wider campaign by the Trump administration to target alleged fraud.

According to contract solicitation details released last week, Homeland Security Investigations—the investigative branch of ICE—wants a contractor to secure publicly available voter history and registration files.

The agency intends to use this data for segmentation activities and the detection of fraud.

The draft outlines that the selected vendor must acquire and securely deliver these public files from every one of the 50 states.

Depending on state-specific storage and collection laws, this data may include addresses, names, and records of whether an individual participated in federal elections.

In certain jurisdictions, the files may also reveal party affiliation, which could provide insight into how a voter cast their ballots.

To bypass restrictions on commercial access to voter data in some states, ICE intends to provide authorization letters to the vendor.

The draft explains that this allows the contractor to serve as a designated acquisition agent, overcoming legal barriers while keeping the commercial nature of the contract intact.

While the current scope of the project does not require the collection of party affiliation data, the document notes this could change if a contracting officer provides explicit written direction.

This move aligns with broader Trump administration goals to identify and deport tens of thousands of individuals.

It also complements efforts to limit mail-in voting, mandate national voter ID, and prosecute officials who allegedly allow ineligible people to vote.

Separately, the president is facing legal challenges over an executive order requiring the U.S. Postal Service to adopt a new ballot-tracking system.

Election officials nationwide have cautioned that this overhaul is an unconstitutional interference in election administration that could cause catastrophic errors and confusion.

A whistleblower complaint further warns that USPS employees might mistakenly discard thousands of ballots if errors are found.

At the same time, the president is pushing the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, which would mandate proof of citizenship for registration and require ID at polling places.

On Wednesday, a federal lawsuit was filed by immigrant rights groups alleging that the Department of Justice and Homeland Security are interfering with elections.

The suit claims the government is using potentially flawed federal databases to inflate allegations of fraud.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights argues in the complaint that the administration is attempting to undermine the election rights of citizens and the ability of states to hold fair elections ahead of the Congressional midterms.

The lawsuit further asserts that the administration is using threats and misinformation to harm individual voters.

This follows a national address in July where the president claimed hundreds of thousands of noncitizens were illegally registered to vote in various states.

Those figures have not been verified, and in one instance, they were withdrawn.

The lawsuit contends that constant, unsupported claims of noncitizen voting damage voter confidence and that threats against naturalized citizens and states violate the Constitution and federal statutes.

The complaint adds that matching government databases to find noncitizen registrants has proven to produce erroneous data.

Furthermore, the suit argues that Congress has not authorized such matches and has specifically prohibited the invasion of voter privacy through this method.

Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)