On December 18, 2025, Stateline reported the existence of confidential memoranda of understanding (MOUs) that the Trump Justice Department had been secretly circulating to states, requiring election officials who shared their voter files to remove any voters flagged by a federal review within 45 days. The agreements, designated "confidential" by the DOJ, represented an unprecedented attempt to create a federal voter purge apparatus operating outside public oversight.
The secret MOUs required states to: provide complete voter registration files including names, addresses, birthdates, driver's license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers; agree that the DOJ would "test, analyze, and assess" states' voter rolls using undisclosed methodology; remove specific voters identified by the DOJ's analysis within 45 days; and maintain the confidentiality of the agreement itself.
Colorado and Wisconsin publicly rejected the MOUs and released copies of the proposed agreements, exposing the program to public scrutiny. A Justice Department official confirmed during a federal court hearing in December that 11 states had expressed interest in signing. Texas and Alaska signed the agreements, while Tennessee and South Dakota refused. States that complied provided the DOJ with voter files that could be cross-referenced with DHS immigration databases and IRS taxpayer records.
Legal experts identified multiple problems with the agreements. The 45-day removal deadline conflicted with the National Voter Registration Act, which requires longer verification procedures and includes a 90-day quiet period before federal elections during which systematic voter removals are prohibited. The Brennan Center later found that data security provisions were inadequate, offering "barely more than protocols used by typical office workers" for protecting sensitive voter information, with files potentially shared with contractors lacking binding safeguards.
The MOUs' confidentiality requirement was itself alarming: the federal government was asking states to secretly agree to purge voters based on federal analysis without public notice, judicial oversight, or the affected voters' knowledge. The program represented a fundamental shift from election administration as a transparent, state-directed process to a federally controlled, secret operation with the potential for massive, politically targeted disenfranchisement.