Lt. Gov. Dahlstrom sends Alaska voters’ information to Trump administration after legal review

The Alaska Division of Elections has shared information about the state’s registered voters with the administration of President Donald Trump after a monthslong legal review, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom said Tuesday.

The decision to share Alaskans’ data comes as the Trump administration has sought to compile a nationwide voter roll, raising concern among some election observers over how the administration would use the information.

The U.S. Department of Justice first requested the voter information from the Alaska Division of Elections in July, according to documents shared by the lieutenant governor’s office. Dahlstrom — who as lieutenant governor is charged with overseeing Alaska’s elections — released the records to Trump administration officials this week, only after what her office called a “thorough” legal review of the request.

The Justice Department in July requested a copy of the state’s voter registration list, including a list of people registered to vote in Alaska who were “determined to be non-citizens.”

Voting by non-citizens is extremely rare in Alaska, the Division of Elections has said based on recent voting records.

Trump for years has falsely claimed that millions of noncitizens are voting illegally, stoking efforts by the GOP to put the threat of noncitizen voting at the center of its political strategy.

Responding to the July Trump administration request, Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher in August shared with the Justice Department the publicly available statewide voter registration list, which includes the names of voters and their party affiliation, but does not include identifying figures such as Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers.

Later in August, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon responded to the state insisting that the state provide a list of registered voters “including the registrant’s full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number.”

Dhillon wrote the information was needed to assess Alaska’s compliance with voter registration maintenance provisions of the National Voter Registration Act.

Before joining the Trump administration, Dhillon was contracted by the Alaska Republican Party last year to oversee a recount of votes cast on an Alaska ballot measure seeking to repeal the state’s ranked choice voting and open primary system. The ballot measure, which was supported by the Alaska GOP, narrowly failed.

In her August letter, Dhillon demanded the state respond to her request within a week. The state’s response came four months later, on Dec. 19, after the Division of Elections signed a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department seeking to protect the information it was sharing.

“The timeline was driven by our commitment to ensuring that any data shared complied fully with Alaska law and protected voter privacy,” said Kelly Howell, a spokesperson for Dahlstrom, in an email.

“When the DOJ made its request in August, we immediately began a thorough review in consultation with the Department of Law and had further discussions with the DOJ,” Howell wrote. “This was necessary to confirm that we had the legal authority to release the requested information and to identify any safeguards needed to protect sensitive voter data. That process takes time, and we wanted to be absolutely certain before moving forward.”

Howell said that the memorandum of understanding signed between the state and DOJ is “common practice for data transfers between government entities.”

The Trump administration has sued numerous states for refusing to share voter registration information with the Justice Department. Several Democratic attorneys general raised concerns last month over the possibility that the Justice Department was sharing voter information with the Department of Homeland Security.

Dahlstrom is one of a dozen Republicans running to be Alaska’s next governor. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is termed out from seeking reelection.