ICE Reportedly Weighed Using Palantir-Backed Tool to Investigate Voter Fraud
Records obtained under a public-records request suggest the US Department of Homeland Security and its immigration agency ICE looked into using the ELITE tool to track people it believes voted illegally. A Palantir spokesman says voter roll data has never been integrated into the system.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appears to have examined whether it could use a tool supported by the company Palantir to track people it believes have voted illegally. The finding comes from a set of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and published this week by the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward. The issue is timely because US midterm elections are due next month.
What the records show
The documents reveal that DHS officials have investigated more than 150 nonprofit groups, looking for evidence that they help noncitizens register to vote. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plays a central role. Its component Homeland Security Investigations leads the voter fraud effort, while its Innovation Lab (iLab) develops tools for agents.
One email sent on May 26 under the subject line "Voter Fraud" says iLab's work relies on Justice Department voting rolls and data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, with criminal histories currently excluded. It also mentions ingesting processed voter roll data into the ELITE system. A July 7 email says six states — Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan and New Mexico — had been "enriched" by iLab and were pending entry into ELITE. The records do not make clear what exactly was enriched.
ELITE, short for Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, was first reported in January by 404 Media. Agents using it can create maps of potential deportation targets, open files on each person and see a confidence score for a current address.
Responses
A Palantir spokesman says voter roll data has never been integrated into ELITE. ICE said it does not disclose investigative methods, while DHS said it is actively investigating election fraud. The White House did not comment.
Chinmayi Sharma, an associate professor at Fordham Law School who tracks ELITE, believes the language in the documents suggests the system was not live when they were written but was being built for the future.
Background
The claim that noncitizens vote in numbers large enough to sway US elections is a central message of the Trump administration ahead of the midterms. Available evidence shows such voting is extremely rare. This week the Justice Department announced charges in 16 cases involving foreign nationals, all of whom were lawful permanent residents.
