DOJ warns state election officials to preserve records ahead of midterms
publishers 32articles 39first reported 20 Oct, 13:57 UTCdeveloping since 20 Oct · 13 editions
The Justice Department sent letters to election officials in all 50 states reminding them to preserve ballots and other federal election records for 22 months and warning that willful violations can bring criminal penalties.
The identical notices, dated Oct. 29 and signed by acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter, cite a federal record-keeping law covering materials such as voter-registration forms, pollbooks, sign-in sheets, mail-ballot requests and ballots. The letters state that willful failure to comply is punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. They also warn against deliberately stealing, destroying, concealing, mutilating or altering election records.
DOJ confirmed in a Friday court filing that the notices went to every state. The department said they were separate from voter- and ballot-specific demands involved in ongoing litigation.
The nationwide warning came days after U.S. District Judge David O. Carter rejected a Justice Department effort to require California to set aside ballots from about 20,000 voters. Carter also told the administration to stop threatening state and county election employees with prosecution.
Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department official and Biden White House voting-rights adviser, told Votebeat he knew of no precedent for such a nationwide reminder and viewed it as intimidation rather than routine guidance. The Justice Department had not responded to Votebeat’s questions about the timing or whether comparable notices had preceded earlier federal elections.
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Written from 8 articles, 3 with the publisher's own text; 8 independent newsrooms once syndicated copies count as one; this version written 264 h after the record first saw the story; the editor kept it as written.
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