April 27 (Reuters) – In January, the Franklin County Election Board in Ohio received a surprising call.
The man on the line said he was an agent from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — and that he needed immediate access to voter records. Franklin County has a large Democratic population and has long been a focal point of Republican skepticism about urban voting centers in Ohio.
In the following weeks, the requests multiplied. According to emails analyzed by Reuters, the agent requested voter registration forms and voting histories of dozens of voters — records that include driver’s license numbers and other confidential data. He pressed to obtain information about local voter registration groups, describing the request as an “investigation” and “very urgent.” But he offered no explanation about what motivated his investigation or where it was headed.
The requests came as an unexpected blow to Franklin County election authorities. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections — even for national offices like the Presidency — are administered by the States, not by the federal government. To complicate matters, the DHS mission traditionally focuses largely on counterterrorism, border security, and immigration enforcement.
“We had never received a call from Homeland Security before, so this was unusual,” said Antone White, the county’s elections director. He said he complied with the request, but he still does not know the purpose of the inquiry. DHS did not comment on the Ohio operation, but said its agents are “actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it is found.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in southern Ohio did not comment on whether any federal investigation was ongoing.
The Ohio episode is part of a broader pattern Reuters found in at least eight States: a broader federal push in the machinery and conduct of U.S. elections, which since the founding of the Republic in 1789 have been administered by states and local governments. Officials and investigators in the administration of President Donald Trump spread across the country, seeking confidential records, pressing for access to voting equipment, and reevaluating cases of election fraud that courts and bipartisan reviews had already rejected.
In Ohio, federal investigators collected voter records in at least six counties, two of them solidly Democratic and the others politically competitive, citing unspecified investigations. The scope of these investigations had not been disclosed previously.
In Nevada, the FBI sought information about voters in the Secretary of State’s office, a request not previously disclosed, as part of a Department of Justice investigation into the 2020 election.
In Colorado, a senior government cyber-security official aligned with the Trump administration approached a county official to request access to the electronic voting machines, according to the official, in another incident not previously reported.
The episodes are prompting local election officials in some states to reevaluate a federal government that has long been seen as a partner in election security. In Colorado, at least 63 county clerks are consulting their state association on how to respond to possible federal subpoenas or to the arrival of federal agents at polling places. And in South Carolina, officials in more than 40 counties plan to participate in a full-day workshop in July focusing on similar scenarios, including the presence of armed federal agents at polling places, state officials told Reuters.
Trump, a Republican, has openly talked about his desire to expand federal authority over elections, urging his party this year to “take control” and “nationalize” voting at least at 15 sites.
It’s not just bravado. Through executive orders and proposed legislation, his administration has sought to require proof of citizenship to vote, allow federal agencies to compile voter registration lists, and require the use of a Homeland Security database to verify eligibility. The administration promoted aggressive purges from voter rolls, limits on mail voting, and unfounded claims about voting machines. And Trump instructed the DHS and the Department of Justice to intensify investigations into claims of election fraud.
“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes voter rolls that are completely accurate and up-to-date, free from errors and from illegally registered non-citizens,” said White House press secretary Abigail Jackson. “Non-citizen voting is a crime. Anyone who breaks the law will be held accountable.”
The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.
For years, conservative groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, have argued that election fraud — including non-citizen voting and other ineligible voters — poses a serious threat to elections in the United States. Trump and his allies have also made false claims that voting machines were rigged against him in the 2020 election.
Courts and scholars of election law have found that these claims are not supported by evidence. But Trump’s relentless calls about the alleged cheating have had an impact: A Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted last week found that 63% of Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen and that a majority of Americans support voter identification requirements.
Rather than pursuing a broad federal takeover of elections, the government appears to be testing constitutional boundaries state by state and county by county, according to Reuters.
The Minnesota Secretary of State, Democrat Steve Simon, said states now need to prepare for the possibility “that our own federal government interferes in the election, directly or indirectly,” whether through federal agents at polling places, emergency executive action, or seizure of election equipment. “It would be irresponsible on my part or on the part of anyone running elections not to imagine scenarios, not to think about how federal interference would play out,” Simon said.
Amy Burgans, a Republican clerk and treasurer of Douglas County, Nevada, said that even the prospect of federal enforcement can be unsettling for election officials. “There is a chilling factor,” she said, citing concerns about personal legal exposure if an investigation intensifies. High-level actions, including federal raids and demands for records related to the 2020 election, have amplified that anxiety.
“That puts the issue at the back of your mind,” Burgans said. “Who will be next?”
Reuters identified at least 20 current and former Trump aides who supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election or promoted broader claims of election fraud and, since then, became involved in the White House’s renewed push to reshape federal elections. Some actions drew national attention, including a January raid on the Fulton County, Georgia, election offices aimed at reviving Trump’s false claims of 2020 voting fraud. Others unfolded under the radar, such as voter data collection in Franklin County, Ohio, a strongly Democratic county that includes Columbus.
Reuters interviewed more than two dozen state and local election officials, reviewed hundreds of pages of correspondence between election officials and federal authorities through public records requests, and consulted more than a dozen scholars of election law.
Nine administrators — including five Republicans, two Democrats, and two independents — said they feared that government actions could open the door to intensified federal scrutiny of election results in November, when control of the U.S. Congress will be at stake.
That does not mean elections are doomed to be overturned, several election experts told Reuters. But attempts at tampering cannot be ruled out. “If the election concentrates in certain jurisdictions, states, or counties where there are disputes, it is more likely we will see attempts at subversion,” said Richard Hasen, professor of Election Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
