The Justice Department has demanded records from two election nonprofits after Homeland Security raised alarms that sensitive motor vehicle and voter data may have been shared in ways that clash with federal privacy law.
Just the News reported that Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward sent letters dated Sept. 30, 2026, to the Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC, and the Center for Election Innovation and Research, known as CEIR. The letters seek details on services, research, DMV correspondence, and any sharing or disclosure of information obtained from state motor vehicle departments.
The move follows a Department of Homeland Security referral that asked DOJ to examine possible violations of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, or DPPA. That statute limits how personal information from motor vehicle records may be used, redisclosed, or deployed to contact people. The legal stakes center on whether government-sourced data stayed inside permitted government functions or drifted into broader political use.
Woodward’s letter to ERIC frames the core problem in plain terms. Officials say the full scope of how ERIC used DPPA-protected personal information is still unclear, separate from any third-party disclosure questions.
Woodward wrote that permitted use for government functions does not stretch to partisan work.
"Even apart from the issue of disclosure to third parties, the scope of ERIC's own use of DPPA-protected personal information remains unclear. Although using such information in furtherance of government functions may be a permitted use, using protected information for certain partisan purposes is not a government function and is thus not permitted under the DPPA, regardless of whether a state consents,"
DOJ sent a nearly identical letter to CEIR, the group that received protected private motor vehicle registration data from ERIC. Woodward asked both organizations for records on member services, research projects, contacts with state motor vehicle departments, and any sharing or disclosure of DMV-obtained information.
DHS asked DOJ to investigate last month relative to the Oct. 4, 2026, report. The White House Government Transparency Task Force later made that DHS letter public. In the letter, Mullin warned that ERIC exposes millions of citizens’ sensitive private data to unknown contractors, subcontractors, and agents of ERIC, potentially in violation of the DPPA.
Mullin also said ERIC lobbies states to sign contracts that require disclosure of private data on people who were not registered to vote and therefore could not need voter list maintenance. The data fields at issue include Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
Federal rules tied to the research exception require that personal information is not published, re-disclosed, or used to contact individuals. DHS said it possesses evidence that ERIC contacted “eligible or possibly eligible” citizens. Georgia public-records emails cited in the referral described CEIR coordinating ERIC eligible-voter outreach that contacted each person identified in the motor vehicle file.
ERIC counts 27 states and the District of Columbia as members. CEIR’s 2020 Voter Education Grant Program reached further. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., applied for and accepted CEIR grant funds that year. The stated grant purpose was to provide nonpartisan, accurate, and official voting information to the public.
DHS pointed to a Pennsylvania example: a $13 million CEIR grant whose terms required the turnover of motor vehicle data originally shared with ERIC. An administration official told Just the News that Homeland Security officials believe at least nine states engaged in the grant agreement authorizing the transfer of the data, and those nine states have over 48 million registered voters.
The same official said Homeland believes the number transferred could be much higher because each state’s motor vehicle database would include motorists who had not registered to vote. A DOJ investigation could determine the final number of files involved. Authorities have not publicly released a fixed nationwide total or named every contractor in the chain.
CEIR’s funding trail runs through the Chan Zuckerberg foundation. Mullin’s letter stated the foundation provided more than $70 million to CEIR ahead of the 2020 election. Reporting also describes more than $400 million from Zuckerberg’s foundation into CEIR and the Center for Tech & Civic Life during the 2020 election period for grants tied to election administration and local officials.
In 2020, CEIR announced the infusion under the heading "Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Increase Support for Safe and Reliable Voting." Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, and Priscilla Chan appear in that funding record through their foundation. The DOJ letters themselves target ERIC and CEIR record-keeping and data handling, not a criminal charge against the donors.
David Becker founded and organized both ERIC and CEIR. Becker, a former government lawyer, later became a director at People for the American Way. That group’s website states: "We believe in a government that works on behalf of the public interest, not the private interests of Musk and other billionaires. And our courts should provide justice for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Donald Trump’s MAGA movement threatens all of us."
No public charges, indictments, or final adjudicated findings appear in the available record. Investigators have not said whether ERIC or CEIR has answered the Sept. 30 letters. Officials have not confirmed the absolute calendar date of the DHS referral beyond the “last month” reference, and they have not publicly listed the specific nine states tied to the grant data-transfer belief.
DOJ’s posture for now is a records demand grounded in DPPA concerns. The letters press for clarity on research projects, DMV correspondence, and any disclosure path that moved motor vehicle data beyond the original state systems. Partisan-purpose concerns are framed as legal risk under the statute, not as a completed court finding.
John Solomon, Editor-in-Chief of Just the News, is on leave and serves as an unpaid Special Government Employee chairing the White House Government Transparency Task Force that released the DHS letter. Steven Richards co-bylined the Oct. 4, 2026, account of the Woodward demands.
DPPA was written to stop easy trafficking in driver-file personal data. When states feed motor vehicle records into multistate voter-maintenance systems, the statute still limits downstream use. Contacting unregistered motorists, redisclosing files to outside groups, or folding the data into political projects can leave the safe harbor that covers ordinary government list maintenance.
ERIC markets itself as a tool for voter roll integrity. CEIR positioned its grants as public voting information support. DHS and DOJ are now testing whether the actual data flow, contractor access, and outreach practices stayed inside those lanes. Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers raise the cost of any misstep.
Conservatives who spent years warning about sprawling third-party access to election infrastructure see a basic accountability test. If nonprofits can contract into DMV pipelines, then federal privacy law has to mean something when the files leave the state vault.
When sensitive driver and voter files move through nonprofit networks, the public deserves a clean audit trail and a hard line against partisan misuse. Records demands are how that line gets enforced.
