This article is featured in the 2025 Homecoming Special Issue.
On Sept. 25, the Trump administration sued New Hampshire and five other states for voter data, including the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, drivers license numbers and birthdays.
The lawsuit follows President Donald Trump’s continued challenges to past election results. In a Truth Social post in July, Trump explained that Attorney General Pam Bondi would be looking into the “rigged and stolen election of 2020” and “do the same thing in 2024.” Democratic tickets won the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections in all of the states being sued.
“To prevent fraudulent votes from being cast in federal elections, federal law requires that all states conduct routine list maintenance of their statewide voter registration databases to maintain accurate voter rolls,” the lawsuit states.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan — who is responsible for maintaining voter data — said in an interview with The Dartmouth that he has refused the administration’s demands because it is his “responsibility is to follow the New Hampshire law.”
“There is a public list which includes information that is available to anybody,” Scanlan said. “All other information is required to be kept confidential by statute, and there are penalties in the law for anybody who violates that provision.”
Government professor and N.H. State Rep. Russell Muirhead, D-Hanover, said the lawsuit is a federal “intrusion” on the states’ constitutional right to administer elections.
“The national government has no experience with this,” Muirhead said. “It has no experience creating a voter database and keeping that database private.”
He said he saw no reason that the Trump administration would need the data.
“It’s not really clear what problem [the lawsuit is] trying to solve,” he said.
If New Hampshire were to comply with the lawsuit and release voter data — including partial Social Security numbers, driver’s license information and birth dates — it could expose sensitive personal details, raising privacy concerns, said government professor Jason Barbaras.
“We don’t know how this information is going to be used,” he said.
Muirhead said the federal government would likely not use this data to target individuals if they had access to it.
“I do not think that they would use the data to target individuals,” Muirhead said, adding that there is already plenty of publicly available data on voter lists.
Turning Point at Dartmouth vice president Colin Jung ’28 agreed that it is unlikely for individuals to be targeted.
“I think we have very robust safeguards in the constitution against that happening,” Jung said. “There’s not any reason — given what the administration has done in the past — that they would target American citizens based on their political views. I just don’t see that as something that would happen or can happen.”
President of the Dartmouth Conservatives Jack Coleman ’26 said that he was “inclined to be supportive of the administration,” as a conservative. He added that the issue of elections and election security had “unfortunately” become politicized.
“Certain actions do need to be taken to increase the public’s trust in our electoral outcomes,” Coleman said. “I do support efforts to ensure not only the actual security of our elections, but the perceived security of them as well.”
Jung agrees that the citizens’ perceived security of elections is critical.
“I think that what is more important than whether or not [voter rolls] are actually accurate is whether there is a perception that they are accurate,” Jung said. “I think that a lot of people feel they are not accurate. If the president wants to do something to give greater confidence to the American people about that, I don’t have a problem with that.”
Dartmouth Democrats political director Beatrice Reichman ’27 disagreed, stating that she believed that the lawsuit was “Orwellian” and an “unprecedented attempt at violating voter privacy.”
“Granite staters should have a right to privacy,” Reichman noted, adding that they shouldn’t have to fear “retaliation” from the administration as a result of their voter history.
“I think free and fair elections are at the heart of American democracy,” Reichman said. “I’m proud that New Hampshire is standing up against something like this.”
Jack Coleman ’26 is a member of The Dartmouth’s podcast team. He was not involved in the writing or editing of this story.
