The Maryland State Board of Elections office in Annapolis. (File photo Danielle E. Gaines/Maryland Matters.)
Maryland’s top election official said he is concerned about a Justice Department demand for state elections data including sensitive information for more than 4 million state voters.
State Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis said his agency has been working with Justice Department investigators under the state’s Public Information Act after they demanded voter information last month. But he said the office balked at a recent demand for an unredacted database that contains protected personal information that could not otherwise be released.
“Handing over a list of 4.3 million people to find something seems to be an overreach,” DeMarinis said Thursday. “It casts aspersions on all Maryland voters, and tries to sow doubt, or some sort of fear that the lists are inaccurate, and that’s just not the case.”
The discussion during Thursday’s meeting of the Maryland State Board of Elections highlighted some deep partisan divides.
Diane Butler, one of two Republican members of the Maryland State Board of Elections. (File photo Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.)
Diane Butler, one of two Republicans on the five-member board, said she “absolutely shocked” by DeMarinis’ response to the Justice Department.
“The response was incomplete, it was unprofessional, and it was actually quite rude,” Butler said. “And I think the Justice Department agreed by the tone of their second letter, and I think that’s where they jumped up and wanted even more.
“I think fighting the Justice Department instead of working with them was not the way that we need to be behaving,” she said.
Maryland was one of a number of states that received letters this summer from the Department of Justice seeking voter registration information.
The July 14 letter requested voter registration data from November 2022 to November 2024. The state was asked to provide “the number of voters identified as ineligible to vote” during that period because they were a “non-citizen … adjudicated incompetent” or had a felony conviction.
The letter referenced a 2023 state audit that had raised questions about the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls.
DeMarinis responded to the request by providing investigators with the process and application that could be used to obtain some of the information.
Under state law, some voter information is available for electoral purposes only. Democratic and Republican central committees routinely request such information.
DeMarinis said he offered to work with the department if they had concerns about specific voters.
What Jstice Department officials wanted went beyond that which DeMarinis said was available under Maryland law.
Maryland Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis said a Justice Department request for voter records including sensitive information “seems to be an overreach.” (File photo Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.)
“They filled out the application. I then wanted to inquire as to … how it was related to electoral purpose, electoral process in the state of Maryland,” DeMarinis said. “They’ve responded back by saying, ‘We demand the voter registration list and all fields in it,’ including” personally identifiable information.
DeMarinis said the agency demanded the information by Aug. 25.
Yaakov “Jake” Weissmann, one of three Democrats on the board, said it was important to work with law enforcement officials, but to do so within the confines of state and federal election laws. The request made by the federal government this summer “is far outside the scope” of what the agency has requested in the past, he said.
“This is a new era for the DOJ, it seems,” Weissmann said, adding that the state elections board should not turnover “Marylanders’ personal information, the last four digits of Social Security, their date of birth, their home address, without any sort of rational explanation.”
Jim Shalleck, a Republican and vice chair of the board, praised DeMarinis for the state’s board’s efforts to maintain accurate voter registration lists.
“I see you doing everything you can to maintain our lists, which is a very difficult task,” he said to DeMarinis.
Butler disagreed.
“I tend to disagree with Jim. We’ve had problems with the list maintenance,” she said. “We failed some of the audit concerning some of these issues, and when I read our response to that, our response was a bunch of excuses as to why we didn’t get it done. We know we’ve had this problem, and then, like I said, we’ve had complaints about it, so I’d like to see solutions instead of excuses.”
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX