'Please contact me ASAP': DOJ's voter data witch hunt derailed by its own botched emails
A comedy of errors has befallen the Justice Department's crusade to chase down Oklahoma election officials for voter data, according to a new report.
The blunders were revealed through internal correspondence and public records reviewed by Democracy Docket's Yunior Rivas, who wrote the debacle "raises questions about whether a department that appears to struggle with email can be trusted to keep safe the sensitive personal data of millions of American voters."
Justice Department officials demanded Oklahoma hand over its complete statewide voter registration list. That initial letter contained a glaring mistake, as it addressed Paul Ziriax as Oklahoma's "Secretary of State" when he actually serves as secretary of the Oklahoma State Election Board.
When Oklahoma never responded, the DOJ followed up. Voting Section acting chief Eric Neff followed up.
"Please contact me asap for an update," Neff wrote.
The emails bounced into the digital void, and were never delivered.
On Jan. 28, Oklahoma official Misha Mohr finally cleared things up.
“I regret to inform you that we did not receive the emails you sent on December 10, December 19, and January 13,” Mohr wrote in a reply. “Today, January 28, 2026, is the first time we have seen these communications. The email address was misspelled on the previous correspondence.”
The mishap is just the latest embarrassment in the Trump DOJ's aggressive voter roll crusade.
"DOJ lawyers have sent demand letters to the wrong officials, cited laws that do not exist and even filed court documents that still contained internal editing comments. In one case, DOJ attorneys left visible notes to themselves in a filing questioning whether key evidence existed and reminding colleagues to 'fix' unresolved issues before submitting it to a federal court," the report noted.