U.S. v. Albence

UPDATE: The United States District Court for the District of Delaware granted the motion to intervene on February 4, 2026.

On February 3, 2026, the ACLU of Delaware and the national American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to intervene in U.S. v. Albence on behalf of several clients—including the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence (DCADV), La Esperanza, and the Latin American Community Center (LACC)—to protect Delawareans’ sensitive personal data from misuse by the federal government. The motion to intervene as defendants was accompanied by a motion to dismiss the case.

U.S. v. Albence is a lawsuit filed by the federal government that seeks to force the State of Delaware to disclose sensitive personal voter data, such as driver’s license numbers and Social Security information, for hundreds of thousands of Delawareans. After making repeated demands for the data, the U.S. Department of Justice was unsatisfied with the State’s offer of the public voter registration list that is readily available to all Delawareans. The Department continued to demand all unredacted sensitive data while failing to answer Delaware officials' questions about the legality of the request. No explanation was given for why this sensitive information was needed, or how it could be transferred in a way that did not violate federal and state laws.

This case is one of more than twenty cases the U.S. has filed against multiple states to forcibly extract data that can be used to further the current anti-immigration agenda and the federal government's heavy-handed and escalating threats to states it perceives as enemies of the Trump administration.

The federal government's sweeping request for Delawareans' voter data threatens our right to privacy and our right to vote. Delaware voters should feel secure that their sensitive personal information will be handled carefully and lawfully by the state and will not be disclosed and weaponized against them by the federal government. We won't stop fighting to preserve the safety of Delaware voters.