Rhode Island

Don’t Delete the Evidence: DOJ Puts Amore on Litigation Hold as 2024 Election Records Clock Runs Out

Virtue Forge briefing · Based on WPRI Target 12 coverage of a Sept. 4, 2026 DOJ preservation demand to Secretary of State Gregg Amore

What happened

WPRI’s Target 12 reports that the U.S. Department of Justice sent Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore a Sept. 4, 2026 letter demanding that his office preserve election records—including those from the November 2024 election—as the federal 22-month retention window for those materials closes.

According to WPRI, the letter is one of a batch sent to 29 states and Washington, D.C. It instructs Amore to take reasonable steps to retain paper documents and electronically stored information related to the 2024 election and beyond, notifies him that his office is under investigation and named in ongoing litigation, and warns that failing to preserve evidence could bring civil and criminal sanctions. WPRI reports the letter itself would be used in court as proof of notice.

The demand sits on top of a longer Rhode Island fight. After Amore refused a DOJ request for Rhode Island’s computerized statewide voter registration list with sensitive personal fields, the United States sued him in December 2025 in United States v. Amore (D.R.I. No. 25-cv-00639). In April 2026, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy denied DOJ’s motion to compel and granted motions to dismiss, concluding the demand lacked a legally sufficient factual basis and purpose under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and characterizing the effort as the kind of “fishing expedition” neither the NVRA nor HAVA authorize. The federal government has appealed.

Amore, a Democrat in his first term, is running unopposed for reelection. He has framed refusal around privacy and the limits of federal authority; DOJ has framed the fight as list-maintenance oversight under federal election statutes.

Fact check: The Sept. 4 letter is a litigation-hold / preservation demand as the statutory retention clock runs down—not a new court order forcing Amore to hand over unredacted voter files. McElroy’s April 17, 2026 memorandum dismissed DOJ’s production demand; that dismissal stands unless and until an appellate court reverses it. Other district courts have dismissed similar DOJ suits. Treat WPRI’s account of the letter’s warnings and the AP’s 29-state batch figure as reporting to verify against the PDF letter and docket—not as proof Rhode Island’s rolls are corrupted.

Virtue Forge commentary

Election integrity is not a partisan mood. It is a competence test: keep accurate rolls, preserve the paper trail, and answer lawful questions without treating every federal inquiry as an insult.

Bias check: Do not launder DOJ’s contested legal theory into a settled finding of Rhode Island fraud. McElroy ruled the production demand failed Title III’s basis-and-purpose requirements. Privacy interests in Social Security fragments and driver’s license numbers are real. The counterpoint is also real: a secretary of state who faces no general-election opponent should not equate court wins on statutory scope with a blank check to run out the clock on records the public may later need when list-maintenance disputes return.

Free enterprise and free elections both depend on auditable systems. Rhode Island already participates in ERIC and runs statutory list-maintenance routines; that is not the same as opaque resistance when retention deadlines approach. Competent, humble government can defend voter privacy in court and prove—publicly—that 2024 election records will not quietly disappear while an appeal is pending. Unopposed Democrats do not get a pass on the first half of that bargain.

Original reporting

Read the underlying coverage:

WPRI Target 12 — DOJ demands Amore preserve 2024 election records amid voter roll fight

FindLaw — United States v. Amore (D.R.I. Apr. 17, 2026) memorandum and order