The Republican lieutenant governor of Utah, Deidre Henderson, is warning that the federal government is threatening the integrity of American elections.
“In the past two elections that I oversaw as lieutenant governor, the threats were all external: non-state actors, cyber security threats and other things,” Henderson told CBS News. “But now we also have threats coming from within our own government.”
Henderson pointed to the Justice Department’s demand for every state to hand over their full voter rolls, including information that is legally required to remain confidential.
“They wanted things that we typically are required by law to keep private: social security numbers, full dates of birth, driver’s license numbers,” Henderson, whose job includes overseeing Utah’s elections, said to CBS. Out of concerns for the federal government’s motive, she refused to provide the data alongside officials in 29 other states.
Last month, the DOJ notified Henderson in writing that she is under investigation.
“I have to tell myself it doesn’t matter what the consequences are, as long as I feel like I’m doing what’s right,” Henderson said. “I think this is an important thing for me to do, holding these guard rails, holding the line. Someone has to.”
Federal agents acting on orders from the Trump administration have seized ballots and voting machines this year, and President Trump himself has continuously pushed election conspiracies. Trump has signed executive orders requiring proof of citizenship to vote and restricting mail-in ballots, and last week, his Department of Justice sued California, claiming, without proof, that the state was sending ballots to 20,000 noncitizens.
California’s top elections official, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, said that the Trump administration didn’t say where the “20,000” number came from or how they verified those individuals’ citizenship status.
“The USDOJ’s relentless efforts to unlawfully gain access to states’ protected voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections,” Weber said in a statement.