ICE reviewed tens of millions of voter records looking for noncitizen voters, records show
By Gabe Cohen, Jeremy Herb, CNN
(CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security’s sweeping election-fraud operation has drawn on tens of millions of records, scrutinized dozens of nonprofit voter-registration groups and considered deploying undercover agents to investigate organizations suspected of helping noncitizens register to vote, according to newly obtained internal documents.
The records, released on Wednesday by the advocacy group Democracy Forward, offer a detailed look inside one arm of the Trump administration’s escalating election-integrity campaign, which has marshaled federal investigators, immigration databases and voter records in an effort to identify noncitizens suspected of illegally registering or voting.
Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative division of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, described the undertaking as a phased national initiative involving voter-roll acquisition, data analysis, investigative leads and field investigations.
The operation drew on extraordinarily large pools of data. A June 1 HSI report said investigators had ingested 50.6 million records from a Justice Department dataset and another 48.4 million records that Heather Honey, a senior counselor to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, had obtained through what the report called “independent sources of information.” The document does not identify those independent sources or make clear whether the two datasets contained unique individuals. HSI said the data was being further analyzed to identify investigative targets.
The records underscore Honey’s role in an initiative that stretched across the federal government. Her previous work challenging the integrity of the 2020 election has been embraced by Trump and his allies. Internally, DHS personnel sought to add officials working under Honey to distribution of HSI’s weekly voter-fraud reports, while another report explicitly attributed the 48.4 million-record dataset to her.
“It appears the president and his allies want to pick their voters, as opposed to the way things are supposed to function in a democracy where voters pick their leaders,” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to DHS for comment.
The documents also show that investigators were looking well beyond individual suspected voters. An internal comparison said HSI was adopting a “network-based investigative approach, prioritizing organization and facilitation analysis over individual leads.” Investigators reviewed dozens of nonprofits and voter-registration organizations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states and examined organizations linked to an Ohio company suspected by investigators of voter-registration fraud.
But several of those reviews turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. Investigators said they found no derogatory information on dozens of New Jersey groups they examined, found no suspicious financial activity in another nonprofit review and closed a separate Ohio inquiry after exhausting its investigative leads.
However, records previously reviewed by CNN showed that in Franklin County, Ohio, an HSI agent pressed election officials for information on several groups, including the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a progressive voter-turnout organization that federal agents raided in June — four months after the exchange.
Still, HSI contemplated more aggressive investigative tactics. A June report said officials were exploring whether to use undercover agents to engage with organizations suspected of encouraging or facilitating illegal voter registration by noncitizens. New Jersey and Pennsylvania were identified as areas of focus. The document said undercover agents could be used to gather evidence and trace financial backing if investigators determined an organization was actively recruiting noncitizens to register.
The-CNN-Wire
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