The Justice Department admitted that two members of the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk at one point last year, may have mishandled Social Security data by using it to match with state voter rolls in violation of the Hatch Act.
The alleged misconduct was revealed in a court document filed Friday by DOJ Civil Division official Elizabeth Shapiro, who said the Social Security Administration referred two unidentified DOGE employees to the Office of Special Counsel for possible Hatch Act violations last month.
The federal law prohibits government employees from using their positions for political purposes.
SSA officials believed the DOGE employees needed to access the agency’s records to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, Shapiro explained. However, the SSA determined that the DOGE team may have had an ulterior motive.
A political advocacy group allegedly contacted DOGE to analyze state voter rolls it had acquired, according to the court document. The purported purpose of the request was to uncover voter fraud and overturn election results in some states.
While communicating with the unnamed political advocacy group, one of the DOGE employees signed a “Voter Data Agreement” in March 2025.
“At this time, there is no evidence that SSA employees outside of the involved members of the DOGE Team were aware of the communications with the advocacy group. Nor were they aware of the ‘Voter Data Agreement,'” Shapiro wrote. “This agreement was not reviewed or approved through the agency’s data exchange procedures. SSA first learned about this agreement during a review unrelated to this case in November 2025.”
The DOJ official stressed it remains unclear whether the two DOGE team members actually shared data with the political advocacy group. However, she noted, emails “suggest that DOGE Team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls.”
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The Social Security data in question was allegedly shared via an unapproved third-party server named Cloudflare, unbeknownst to the SSA. The agency was unable to determine what data was shared on Cloudflare or whether it remains on the third-party server.
“SSA and the undersigned counsel bring these matters to the Court’s attention to ensure full candor to the Court,” Shapiro wrote at the end of her filing. “A review of the SSA DOGE Team’s actions is ongoing, and SSA and the undersigned counsel will continue to ensure that the record and representations made to this Court are accurate.”
