Mark Zuckerberg admitted last year that he let the Biden White House pressure him into censoring American voters.
Now federal investigators want to know what he did with their personal data before that censorship even started.
What DHS just handed the Justice Department may be the most damaging document Zuckerberg has ever faced.
How ERIC Voter Data Ended Up in Zuckerberg's Hands
States have been feeding their most sensitive motor vehicle records – Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, home addresses – into a private nonprofit called the Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC, for years.
ERIC used that information to build what it called "Eligible But Unregistered" lists – a comprehensive database of every American who holds a driver's license but isn't on a voter roll.
In 2020, those lists covered more than 17 million people across 29 states and the District of Columbia.
According to a letter from Homeland Security Secretary Secretary Markwayne Mullin to Attorney General Todd Blanche, that protected motor vehicle data moved from ERIC directly into the hands of another private organization: the Center for Election Innovation and Research, or CEIR – the group that received more than $70 million from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan ahead of the 2020 election.
Mullin wrote that the "sharing and re-sharing of Motor Vehicle Agency data among NGOs may not qualify as a permissible use of motor vehicle data identified in the DPPA" – that's the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act, enacted specifically because government databases of personal information are too sensitive to pass through private hands without strict accountability.
The penalty for each violation starts at $2,500.
The Man Who Founded ERIC Then Founded CEIR
Pennsylvania's grant agreement with CEIR – $13 million of Zuckerberg's money – required the state to "cooperate with CEIR, including providing data, as CEIR reasonably requests."
The data requested included the same motor vehicle records Pennsylvania had supplied to ERIC.
What the architects of this arrangement understood, and what most of the country missed in 2020, is that David Becker built ERIC at Pew Charitable Trusts, then left Pew to found CEIR in 2016.
The man who designed the data intake system also ran the organization that received the data.
Becker is a former senior activist for People for the American Way, the left-wing advocacy organization funded by George Soros. A former acting head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division described him as a "hardcore leftist" who "couldn't stand conservatives."
Drivers Privacy Protection Act Violations DHS Sent to DOJ
The DHS letter raised a second problem embedded in the architecture of the lists themselves.
ERIC's model contract required states to hand over motor vehicle records every 60 days – but explicitly prohibited states from flagging records that identified an individual as a noncitizen.
The result: the outreach lists were built on DMV data with no mechanism to screen for citizenship.
Zuckerberg's voter outreach operation contacted people flagged as "eligible but unregistered" using a dataset that structurally could not confirm they were Americans.
Zuckerbuck's Voter Outreach and the 2020 Election Integrity Question
What DHS has now referred to the Justice Department is not a procedural complaint about paperwork.
It is a federal privacy referral alleging that protected government data on millions of Americans was routed through a network of left-wing nonprofits – backed by Zuckerberg and Chan's $400 million in total 2020 election philanthropy – to identify and contact potential Democrat voters before a presidential election.
The Thomas More Society filed lawsuits in 2022 against election departments in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin over exactly this arrangement, alleging violations of the Help America Vote Act.
Mullin's letter gives the DOJ the full architecture: two organizations sharing a founder, $70 million in Zuckerberg money flowing directly to CEIR, and motor vehicle records on 17 million Americans that federal law may never have permitted them to touch.
Attorney General Blanche now has the referral.
What he does with it will determine whether 2020's most elaborate election operation ever faces a reckoning.
Sources:
- Bethany Blankley, "DHS asks DOJ to review voter data sharing tied to Zuckerberg-funded group," Washington Examiner, September 4, 2026.
- John Solomon, "Homeland asks DOJ to probe transfer of private state voter data to Zuckerberg-tied nonprofit," Just the News, September 4, 2026.
- Kyle Becker, "DHS Letter to Attorney General Brings Fresh Scrutiny to Zuckerberg's 2020 Election Activities," RedState, September 4, 2026.
- "Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR)," Influence Watch, accessed September 5, 2026.
- "David Becker: ERIC is the 'Most Effective Voter Registration Drive' in American History," Restoration News, accessed September 5, 2026.
