Under investigation: letters to thirty states’ election chiefs eight weeks before the midterms

Editor's note: the letters are documented and experts and reporting describe them as intimidation, but no court or official finding establishes a retaliatory purpose.

The letters exist and one of them is public. A letter dated September 4, 2026, signed by Eric Neff, acting chief of the Voting Section, told the Kentucky Secretary of State: "As you are aware, you are currently under investigation and ongoing litigation as to the extent to which you have failed to comply with your duties under the CRA as well as the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”)..." It ordered the preservation of records and warned: "Your failure to preserve relevant data may constitute spoliation of evidence, which may subject you to civil and criminal sanctions." The Associated Press obtained a letter telling Utah's Republican lieutenant governor that she was under investigation, and reported that the department declined to elaborate on what the investigation was. A department spokeswoman confirmed the letters went to all 30 jurisdictions it was in active litigation against.

The litigation the letters refer to had been failing. At the time of the letters the department was 0 and 23 in its voter-roll suits against the states, with one loss in an appeals court. That appeal was decided on June 24, 2026, when the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the department's suit for Michigan's unredacted voter rolls, holding that the narrow text of Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 cannot bear the government's broad request, and observing that the government now invokes Title III for an inverse purpose, to ensure that some people have not voted. One of the three judges dissented.

The department's explanation is procedural. The head of the Civil Rights Division said the letters were sent to ensure the states did not destroy election records related to the ongoing lawsuits, and that this was standard litigation practice rather than a threat. No court, inspector general or congressional body has found the letters improper, and no charge has followed any of them. An election law expert at the Center for Election Innovation and Research said the only two reasons to send such a letter were that the lawyers sending it did not understand litigation obligations, or that they hoped states would misinterpret it and retain more than the law requires. What the record establishes is the letters themselves, their timing eight weeks before a federal election, the accusation of being under investigation without elaboration, and a litigation record of 23 losses behind them.