OKLAHOMA CITY — The voter registration data spat between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Oklahoma State Election Board was settled Tuesday, according to the state Attorney General’s office.
The agreement will ensure that the State Election Board continues to comply with the law and that privacy protections are in place for the information that is provided, officials said.
“The State of Oklahoma will cooperate with efforts to eliminate voter fraud and safeguard electoral processes in accordance with the law,” Attorney General Gentner Drummond said. “We are committed to both election integrity and the protection of personal information.”
State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said Oklahoma complies with federal and state election laws. “From the beginning, I have been willing to cooperate with the DOJ,” he said.
To comply with federal law, Oklahoma will provide the state’s computerized statewide voter registration list, as requested by the Justice Department, through a settlement that ensures personal privacy is protected.
The Election Board will supply the U.S. Attorney General with an electronic copy of Oklahoma’s computerized statewide voter registration list — “with all fields, including each registrant’s full name, date of birth, residential address, and either their full state driver’s license number, the last four digits of their Social Security number, or Help America Vote Act unique identifier …” The agreement provides that the DOJ will comply with the Privacy Act of 1974 in handling and protecting the data. The Civil Rights Division will use information from the statewide voter registration list “solely to assess the State’s compliance” with the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, “and for no other purpose.”
Furthermore, the Civil Rights Division “will comply with all laws … in the handling and protection of the statewide voter registration list produced” by the Oklahoma State Election Board.
The DOJ will use the copy of Oklahoma’s voter registration list to assess the state’s compliance with election laws.
“This settlement is a positive step forward for election integrity,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Clean voter rolls are essential for there to be confidence in our elections…” Oklahoma has strong election laws requiring proof of identity, notarization for most absentee voting, a ban on ballot harvesting, an Election-Day deadline for receipt of all absentee ballots, use of paper ballots for all voters except those who have disabilities, post-election audits to verify the accuracy of vote counts, and “robust voter list maintenance practices,” Ziriax noted.
The Justice Department sued Oklahoma and four other states earlier this month, alleging failure to produce their full voter registration lists upon request. That action raised to 29 and the District of Columbia the number of states sued by the federal agency.
The DOJ contends the U.S. Attorney General is uniquely charged by Congress with broad authority to request election records under the Civil Rights Act of 1960. This Act, the DOJ contends, allows the U.S. Attorney General to demand the production, inspection, and analysis of statewide voter registration lists that can be cross-checked effectively for improper registrations.
States have authority to regulate elections
However, the U.S. Constitution — the supreme “law of the land” — accords states the primary authority to regulate elections.
Article I, Section 4, known as the Elections Clause, provides that state legislatures determine the “times, places, and manner” of elections for federal offices, including Congress, and by extension, Presidential elections.
This means states set voter qualifications, registration procedures, polling locations, ballot design, and vote counting processes. State legislatures also control how electors are chosen for the Electoral College in Presidential elections. The President has no independent power to regulate elections.
The DOJ requested Oklahoma’s statewide voter registration list “several months ago,” Misha Mohr, director of communications and public information for the State Election Board, told Southwest Ledger in late December.
The Justice Department was provided with instructions for accessing the list via the OK Election Data Warehouse, Mohr said. “However, no request for access was received.”
DOJ sent requests to wrong address
Public records showed the DOJ demanded Oklahoma turn over confidential voter data for months. However, the state Election Board reported it never received a formal request, because the DOJ repeatedly sent its emails to the wrong address.
Emails show a Department of Justice attorney first contacted Ziriax in 2025, requesting extensive voter information. In that email, the DOJ attorney asked the Election Board to turn over personal data for every registered voter in Oklahoma.
That request included publicly available information such as names, birth dates, and party affiliations. It also sought private data, including driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of voter Social Security numbers, “in order to ascertain Oklahoma’s compliance with the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act.”
“As we discussed,” Ziriax responded on July 8, 2025, “the publicly available voter list does not include a driver license number or last 4 SSN because these items are not public records and are required to be kept confidential” pursuant to Title 26 of Oklahoma’s State Statutes.
Ziriax asked the DOJ attorney to “provide the citation” to any federal law that supersedes Oklahoma’s statutory confidentiality requirements.
He also wrote, “There also may be questions regarding the security protocols that will be in place to protect our state’s data, so if you can provide this information I will share it, too, with our legal counsel” in the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office.
Apparently the DOJ did not respond.
Oklahoma elections ‘safe and secure’
President Trump’s DOJ never explained publicly why they wanted Oklahoma’s voter registration data.
Republicans occupy every statewide elected office in Oklahoma plus all five congressional seats and both U.S. Senate seats, and voted overwhelmingly for Trump — three times.
Moreover, Oklahoma elections have been proven repeatedly to be secure and accurate.
In Oklahoma, 39 suspected voting offenses were reported during the statewide 2024 General Election. Those transgressions constituted 25 ten-thousandths of 1% of the 1,566,173 votes cast in the Presidential election, the contest that received the most votes.
The 21st Oklahoma Multi-County Grand Jury indicted an Oklahoma City woman Oct. 9, 2025, on a felony count of voting twice during the 2024 General Election.
Victoria Vincenza Dill, 32, is accused of voting illegally in the Nov. 5, 2024, general election. The Oklahoma State Election Board discovered Dill voted in person in Oklahoma County and submitted an absentee ballot in Payne County on the same day.
Dill’s arraignment in Payne County District Court is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. today. She has been free from custody on a $2,000 appearance bond.
Besides Dill, 38 other potential violations of state election laws – including 26 other potential instances of double voting – also were reported during that election.
After the Oklahoma State Election Board reviewed information it received from Oklahoma’s 77 county election boards, the total number of voter irregularities detected during the November 2020 statewide general election was set at 66, Mohr said. Those 66 incidents constituted .0042% of the 1.566 million votes cast in the Presidential race that year — 42 ten-thousandths of 1%.
Records have shown that typical cases of voter “fraud” in Oklahoma are usually cases of double-voting by elderly citizens who submit an absentee ballot prior to the election, then inadvertently vote in person at their precinct on Election Day.
Also, post-election audits have consistently proven that Oklahoma elections are safe and secure, Ziriax said last year. “The accuracy of Oklahoma election results has been confirmed, time and time again, through both manual post-election audits and candidate-requested recounts.”
Audits are conducted any time an election involves candidates, Comanche County Election Board Secretary Amy Sims said. An arbitrary sample of ballots are hand-counted and the results are compared with the voting machine results. “In essence, we double-count,” Sims said. The Comanche County vote has been “exact” each and every time, she said.
Post-election audits were enacted by the Oklahoma Legislature and implemented by the State Election Board in 2022 “for the purpose of maintaining the security of the election system…” Post-election audits are defined as “a manual or electronic examination of a limited number of ballots.”
Mike W. Ray is a fifthgeneration, award- winning journalist who has more than 55 years’ experience covering municipal, county, state and federal government in Oklahoma and Texas. He can be reached at mike.ray@swoknews.com.