States were told by the U.S. Department of Justice that if they did not comply, the federal government would force them to comply.
President Donald Trump’s administration did not apply pressure. It was the early 1990s, and President Bill Clinton signed the “Motor Voter” law, which required states to require people to register to vote when applying for a driver’s license.
The strongly independent state of Idaho did not want to participate. So rather than comply with the federal government’s new National Voter Registration Act, the state Legislature decided to follow the recommendations of Idaho’s top election official and find a way out. The Idaho Legislature almost unanimously passed a bill introducing same-day registration, with full support from Republicans, because federal voter law said states could be exempt from same-day voter registration.
At the time, then-Idaho Chief Deputy Secretary of State Ben Esursa called the move a near-existential response to “the federal government’s insidious intrusion into state election processes.”
The Clinton Justice Department ultimately sued the three states for failing to comply with its demands. By then, Idaho had a shield against lawsuits thanks to its immunity.
Three decades later, that exemption and the philosophy that led to it are at the heart of Idaho’s refusal to comply with a very different request from the Trump Justice Department. The state’s top elections official has cited the exemption as one reason for not signing a deal that would provide the Trump administration with all voter data held by the state’s office, including sensitive personal information such as Social Security and driver’s license numbers.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGlenn is one of about a dozen Republicans nationwide to resist the administration’s efforts to collect sensitive data on voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, in the face of a lawsuit from the Justice Department.
In a state that Trump won by the nation’s largest margin in 2024, the administration’s touted efforts to exclude noncitizen voters are testing the limits of what Trump’s devoted home base will tolerate when it comes to privacy and federal power.
Lists of voters’ addresses and party affiliations are often made available to the public through open records requests. McGlenn provided this version to the government. But state election officials also keep more sensitive information, such as a person’s exact date of birth and portions of their Social Security number. In Idaho, the law says this information cannot be released, and the Trump administration is still pursuing it.
Of the five other states exempted from the law, three have refused to provide sensitive voter information and have since been sued by the Justice Department. Wyoming handed over the data without filing a lawsuit. Other states that are not exempt have also been sued.
Mr. McGlen, an attorney, told the Justice Department in a letter that he sees no legal reason to honor the government’s request and, given the government’s recent admissions about how it handles sensitive data, he is unsure whether the department will keep the sensitive data secure, as it is required to do under state law.
McClain wrote that the simplified version of the voter information he had already handed over would be sufficient for the government to conduct a “legitimate investigation” into how effectively Idaho maintains its voter list.
Through a spokesperson, McGlenn declined an interview request from ProPublica, citing the possibility of an impending lawsuit from the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment.
Phil McGlenn, the Republican secretary of state in Idaho, is one of about a dozen Republicans nationwide to resist the administration’s efforts to collect sensitive voter data ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Kyle Green/AP Photo
In a suspended voicemail with McGlenn’s office obtained by ProPublica and previously reported by the Idaho Capital Sun, a Justice Department lawyer threatened to sue the state of Idaho in December.
“We need a little more clarity on what you’re going to do or what you’re not going to do. So, again, we need a response from you,” the lawyer says in the recording. “As you may have seen in the news, we sued six states earlier this week for refusing to provide us with voter registration lists, and we are preparing additional lawsuits.”
The lawyer then told the Secretary of State’s office: “We want to keep everyone out of this as much as possible, but we haven’t heard back from you.”
Mr. Isrusa, who served three terms as secretary of state until 2015, said Mr. McGlen is “in a much more politically unstable situation than I have ever been.”
“There’s a fine line running against Trump in Idaho on certain things,” Isrusa said. “And I think he’s doing a good job. He’s doing the right thing.”
Matthew May, director of research at Boise State University’s School of Public Service, said public policy research conducted in Idaho since the 1990s has revealed a trend of “distrust and wariness of federal and state control.”
May said long-term polling reveals a strong belief in Idahoans’ independence.
In the months since McGlenn’s rejection, more than 130 voters have called, emailed, and sent handwritten cards and letters to his office. Of those, only one said they wanted McGlenn to provide information to the Trump administration. Others were supportive, grateful and, in some cases, appeared panicked at the prospect of their personal information being made public.
Although the senders skewed more Democratic than Idaho voters, just over half of the messages were from Republican and independent voters, based on a review of voter registration data of commenters who left their names.
“Mr. McGlenn has done a masterful job of fending off the U.S. Department of Justice’s request for complete voter records for Idaho voters,” one registered Republican wrote. “We hope that Mr. McGlenn will give them a firm no if dancing no longer works.
“Voting is our only sacred right in this country,” the person continued. “The Department of Justice has no legitimate business receiving our personal voter information. They may threaten to sue, but so will the voters of Idaho if you grant their request. Please do not give them our personal voter information. Thank you.”
Ysrusa told ProPublica that he urged McGlenn to “hold the line” despite the potential repercussions. Isursa is one of nine former secretaries of state who have filed amicus briefs in federal court opposing the administration’s request for complete voter information.
Esursa said the Trump administration’s move to nationalize elections runs counter to the idea of ”keeping the federal government out of Idaho.”
McGrane is a self-described election geek who worked his way up the ranks at a campaign office rather than cultivating a career as a professional politician. He served as county elections director and earned a reputation for approaching Election Day with Super Bowl-like enthusiasm. He also became known for his ability to resist political winds.
McGlenn was one of seven people featured on the cover of Time magazine as “defenders” of American elections in 2022. That year, McGlenn was the only Republican candidate for secretary of state in Idaho who did not endorse Trump’s false claims that fraud was to blame for his loss in the 2020 election.
Perhaps the strongest sign that Mr. Trump’s base in Idaho has not been fueled by Mr. McGlenn’s opposition to the administration’s voter list request, which has received a lot of local media attention, no candidates contested his position by last month’s deadline for the Idaho Republican primary.
Voters across Idaho sent letters to McGlenn thanking him for not sharing the data. Audrey Dutton/ProPublica
Although the Constitution gives each state the power to conduct elections, the National Voter Registration Act gives the federal government the role of ensuring that voter rolls are properly maintained. The law says election officials must make “reasonable efforts” to keep ineligible voters off the rolls, and oversight typically comes in the form of lawsuits alleging states aren’t doing an adequate job.
Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department took another step forward. The department claims it has the right to seize each state’s unredacted voter rolls without proving its case in court, citing in the lawsuit authorities that department officials say they have under the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act.
The Justice Department has privately provided states with further details about its intentions, according to emails obtained by ProPublica through a public records request.
In Montana, a federal lawyer told the secretary of state’s general counsel that the department is requesting voter rolls to “facilitate the review of non-citizens and deceased voters,” adding that federal officials could also assess whether there are duplicate registrations.
The request comes as part of the Trump administration’s focus on purging noncitizens from the voter rolls, a longstanding concern of the president. He has long claimed, without evidence, that non-citizens are infiltrating the registers to influence elections.
Three judges, who have previously carefully considered the government’s lawsuits, threw out the case, saying the federal law cited by the Trump administration as the basis for its request did not apply, especially as it pertained to voters’ personal information.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasbai of Oregon wrote that the Justice Department’s claims are a “troubling matter” emblematic of federal overreach.
U.S. District Judge David Carter in California said centralizing information would have a chilling effect on voter registration and lead to lower turnout as people fear their data will be used for “improper or illegal purposes.”
“This risk threatens the foundation of American democracy: the right to vote,” Carter wrote.
U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbue of Michigan agreed with that interpretation, writing that “the risk that their personal information will be misused will deter people from registering to vote.”
The Department of Justice appealed all of the court’s decisions.
Meanwhile, leaders in Republican-led states that are suppressing voter roll registration are at pains to show they are making other efforts to prevent non-citizens from voting.
Idaho began looking for evidence of problems well before the Trump administration’s request. In a letter to the Justice Department, McGlenn said his office is working with federal agencies to verify the citizenship status of all registered voters in Idaho in preparation for the 2024 general election.
Given what Idaho has already done and the processes already in place, the federal government has “no legal or practical basis for duplicate review,” McGrane wrote.
He said the tools Idaho adopted included a Department of Homeland Security program known as Systematic Alien Credentials.
The raid in Idaho found 11 cases of noncitizens who registered to vote, but none actually voted in 2024 – and state police referred the cases to the chief prosecutor at the Idaho Department of Justice for review.
McGlenn told the Justice Department that he has not heard anything about these cases since then.
