Justice Department orders 29 states and DC to hold 2024 election records, warning of criminal sanctions

What happened

The Associated Press reports that the Justice Department sent letters to 29 states and the District of Columbia instructing election officials not to destroy 2024 election records. Eric Neff, acting chief of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section, wrote that the purpose of the letter is to notify recipients of their obligations to conduct a litigation hold and preserve all hard copy documents and electronically stored information. The letter warns that failure to preserve relevant data may constitute spoliation of evidence, which could subject officials to civil and criminal sanctions, and one letter obtained by the AP told Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson that she is under investigation and subject to ongoing litigation over the state's failure to turn over statewide voter registration lists. Henderson said her office received the letter on Friday; the secretaries of state for Arizona and Minnesota confirmed they received it too, and the department declined to elaborate on the nature of the investigation. Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Civil Rights Division, said in a post on X that the department sent the letters to ensure states do not destroy election records related to the lawsuits, and that "This is standard litigation practice, not a 'threat.'" Democracy Docket reports the department is currently 0-23 in these lawsuits against the states and has also lost one in an appeals court.

The letter to Utah, obtained by KSL and reported by the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune, came from the department's Civil Rights Division and was sent on Friday 4 September. It told Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson: "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 (Civil Rights Act of 1960)", as well as the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act of 2002. It says she is obliged to retain records that might be relevant to the investigation, but gives no further detail about what the agency is looking into. Henderson, a Republican, posted a screenshot of the letter on social media on Wednesday 9 September and replied: "Um, no, I was not aware, but I guess I am now. It would be nice if the good folks at the DOJ would focus on actual problems instead of baselessly harassing election officials." The department had threatened her with potential criminal prosecution in July after she rebuffed its requests for Utah's voter rolls.

Why it matters

A preservation letter is an ordinary litigation instrument, but attaching a criminal-sanctions warning and an investigation notice to it changes what election officials are being asked to weigh. The department has not won access to a single state's voter file in these suits, and the demand arrives anyway — which makes the exposure, rather than the records, the operative pressure on the officials who administer the vote.