Internal Homeland Security Investigations reports released October 7 put numbers on something the sector had been hearing about in fragments. In Pennsylvania, agents reviewed 82 nongovernmental organizations. In New Jersey, research was completed on about 41, and the documents say it turned up no derogatory information on any of them.
The records came out through a federal Freedom of Information Act request filed by the legal group Democracy Forward. States Newsroom's document review, by Jonathan Shorman, describes agency reports from May and June that track what Homeland Security calls election integrity investigations. Democracy Docket, working from the same release, described hundreds of groups touched by investigations over the past year.
If your organization runs registration drives, know what the files say and what they do not.
The Documents Describe Two Separate Things
The first is a records sweep. A Homeland Security official working on election integrity obtained 48.4 million records through what the documents call "independent sources of information," and the agency drew on roughly 50.6 million more from the Justice Department. The reports do not describe what any of those records contain. A much smaller set, 26,563 records derived from ICE, was prioritized for what the agency calls downstream vetting in Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Justice Department records were prioritized in those five states plus Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. On October 9 a federal judge vacated the Justice Department policy under which state voter rolls were collected and cross-checked against a federal immigration database, holding that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Privacy Act. The department has said it is reviewing the ruling.
The second is organizational research. A June 1 report carries the state counts, lists 22 organizations the agency was beginning to look at, and discusses the possible deployment of undercover agents. Election Law Blog's summary of the Times account of the same documents describes agents gathering evidence and disrupting activities if they found active recruitment of noncitizens. Democracy Docket quotes a document saying undercover findings would initiate prosecutions and dismantle illicit facilitation networks. Democracy Docket also reports that the records do not indicate any undercover operation against a voter registration group actually took place.
No Charges Against a Reviewed Organization Are Reported
The New Jersey finding of no derogatory information is in the agency's own documents. No reviewed organization is reported to have been charged.
One reviewed organization did not come back clean in the same sense. The June 1 report flagged the Pennsylvania chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for further investigation. Its executive director, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, said the group's voter registration program "follows all applicable voter registration rules and requirements." Being flagged is not a finding either.
The underlying premise is thin as well. Noncitizen voting is rare, as studies have consistently found. The Justice Department has brought a few dozen prosecutions this year, all of them against individuals rather than organizations, set against the 154 million people who voted in 2024 by Census figures.
Homeland Security did not answer specific questions but issued an unsigned statement saying that "HSI is committed to restoring integrity to our election systems." ICE did not respond. The National Council of Nonprofits called the accusations baseless in an October 8 statement, with president and chief executive Diane Yentel saying that registering Americans to vote is "a celebration of our democracy, not a partisan activity." The same statement says evidence of illegal activity should be investigated and prosecuted.
What This Changes for Your Organization
Start with what has not changed, because it is most of it. Nonpartisan voter registration by a 501(c)(3) was permitted before these documents came out and is permitted now, and the federal rules for 501(c)(3)s have not moved. An investigation is not a finding. A review that produced no derogatory information is, on its face, a review that found nothing.
Two qualifiers belong next to that, because they are what the word nonpartisan is doing. The IRS treats voter education or registration activity as prohibited campaign intervention where there is evidence of bias that favors or opposes a candidate or that has the effect of favoring a candidate, and the consequences it lists are denial or revocation of exempt status and certain excise taxes. Effect, not just intent, is the test. Private foundations sit on different footing too, because a foundation can be taxed for funding a drive that fails the requirements of section 4945(f).
State law is the other half, and it does move. Many states regulate third-party voter registration organizations directly, with registration requirements, delivery deadlines, and per-application penalties. The Fair Elections Center's state voter drive guides are the fastest way to check yours. Outcomes here turn on your specific facts, and this is not legal advice for your situation.
What does change is the cost of loose records. Three jobs are worth an afternoon this month.
First, write down how the drive is nonpartisan in practice, not just in policy: the script volunteers use, the rule that nobody is asked their party or their candidate, where you table and why those sites were chosen. If anyone ever asks how the program works, the answer should be a document you already have, not a reconstruction.
Second, know what your registration records contain and how long you keep them. Public access here is narrower than people assume. The voter roll is public in most states in a limited form, typically name, address, and voting history, often with use restrictions, but the completed application is not: Social Security and driver's license numbers are confidential by statute in many states, signatures generally cannot be copied, and federal law bars disclosing which agency a voter registered through. Your internal copies, volunteer logs, and spreadsheets are yours. A written retention schedule, set before any request arrives, beats a good instinct under pressure.
Third, decide now who takes the call. One named staff member routes any contact from a federal agent, a subpoena, or a records demand to counsel before anyone answers a substantive question. If your budget has no line for a lawyer, a state association of nonprofits or a legal services clinic is usually the cheapest route, and a foundation mutual defense pact signed this year was built for exposure in this neighborhood.
The Takeaway
Federal agents reviewed scores of organizations and, on the record so far, charged none of them. The federal tax rule protecting nonpartisan registration work is intact, and what that word carries is an effects test, not a good-faith test. The response is not to stop registering voters. It is to make your program legible on paper, read your state's drive rules, set your retention schedule before anyone asks, and name the person who calls a lawyer.