ICE Emails Discuss Using Palantir-Supported Tool to Investigate Voter Fraud

ICE 电子邮件讨论使用 Palantir 支持的工具调查选民欺诈

As the Trump administration has carried out a nonstop effort to undermine the midterm elections this year, the Department of Homeland Security appears to have looked into whether it could use a Palantir-supported tool to track people it believes have voted illegally. 随着特朗普政府今年不断努力破坏中期选举，国土安全部似乎已经研究了是否可以使用 Palantir 支持的工具来追踪其认为非法投票的人员。

The revelation is found in a tranche of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and published this week by Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy group. As well as revealing that DHS officials have investigated over 150 nonprofit groups in search of evidence they’re helping noncitizens register to vote, the documents show how Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now central to federal voter fraud investigations. 这一披露来自法律倡导组织“民主前锋”（Democracy Forward）本周通过《信息自由法》请求获得并发布的一批文件。这些文件不仅揭示了国土安全部官员调查了 150 多个非营利组织，以寻找它们帮助非公民登记投票的证据，还显示了美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）现在如何成为联邦选民欺诈调查的核心。

More specifically, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)—one of ICE’s two major components—is spearheading the effort to uncover voter fraud, with its Innovation Lab (known internally as iLab) developing tools for agents. 更具体地说，国土安全调查局（HSI）——ICE 的两个主要组成部分之一——正在牵头开展揭露选民欺诈的工作，其创新实验室（内部称为 iLab）正在为特工开发相关工具。

ICE, it seems, wants to build “a system that is going to get good at determining how to find people to investigate and potentially bring action against,” Chinmayi Sharma, an associate professor at Fordham Law School who has closely tracked the Palantir-supported tool called ELITE, tells WIRED. 福特汉姆法学院副教授钦马伊·夏尔马（Chinmayi Sharma）一直密切关注名为 ELITE 的 Palantir 支持工具，她告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志，ICE 似乎想要建立“一个能够擅长确定如何找到调查对象并可能对其采取行动的系统”。

“You would want to build off of what already exists, what might already have the infrastructure and data sources that you would want,” says Sharma. 夏尔马说：“你会希望在现有的基础上进行构建，利用那些可能已经具备你所需要的架构和数据源的东西。”

“iLab’s processing focuses on DOJ voting rolls and [US Citizenship and Immigration Services] data; criminal histories are currently excluded, with efforts underway to address this,” a worker in HSI’s Countering Transnational Organized Crime unit wrote on May 26 in an email with “Voter Fraud” in the subject line. (Like other workers, their name was redacted in the records released to Democracy Forward.) “iLab 的处理重点是司法部的选民名册和[美国公民及移民服务局]的数据；目前排除了犯罪记录，但正在努力解决这个问题，”HSI 打击跨国犯罪部门的一名工作人员在 5 月 26 日一封主题为“选民欺诈”的电子邮件中写道。（与其他工作人员一样，他们的名字在发布给“民主前锋”的记录中被涂黑了。）

“Coordination with iLab continues,” they wrote, “particularly on ingesting processed voter roll data into the ELITE enforcement system to enhance lead management, analytical review, and investigative tracking.” 他们写道：“与 iLab 的协调仍在继续，特别是将处理后的选民名册数据输入 ELITE 执行系统，以加强线索管理、分析审查和调查追踪。”

The existence of ELITE, which stands for Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, was first reported in January by 404 Media, which revealed that ICE agents using the tool can create maps featuring potential deportation targets, pull up files on each target, and see a “confidence score” on the person’s current address. ELITE（意为“增强型执法线索识别与定位”）的存在最早由 404 Media 在 1 月份报道，该媒体披露 ICE 特工使用该工具可以创建包含潜在驱逐目标的地图，调出每个目标的档案，并查看该人当前地址的“置信度评分”。

“Voter roll data has never been integrated into ELITE,” a Palantir spokesman tells WIRED. 一位 Palantir 发言人告诉《连线》：“选民名册数据从未被整合到 ELITE 中。”

ELITE was again mentioned in a July 7 email with an attachment named “Fraud WAR”—WAR typically refers to a weekly activity report—from a DHS worker who shared an update on the agency’s “election integrity investigations,” including the news that Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, and New Mexico had “been enriched by the iLab and are pending Palantir entry into ELITE.” 在 7 月 7 日的一封电子邮件中，ELITE 被再次提及。邮件附件名为“欺诈 WAR”（WAR 通常指每周活动报告），来自一名国土安全部工作人员，他分享了该机构“选举诚信调查”的最新进展，其中包括康涅狄格州、佐治亚州、肯塔基州、密苏里州、密歇根州和新墨西哥州的数据“已由 iLab 丰富，并等待 Palantir 输入 ELITE”的消息。

What specifically was enriched and pending Palantir entry is unclear from the records, but in another email in the same chain, a DHS official said that someone from the agency would send the update to the White House. 记录中并不清楚具体是什么内容被丰富并等待输入 Palantir，但在同一邮件链中的另一封邮件里，一位国土安全部官员表示，该机构会有人将此更新发送给白宫。

“ICE does not disclose the existence of investigative methods and techniques,” an agency spokesperson tells WIRED. 该机构发言人告诉《连线》：“ICE 不会披露调查方法和技术的存在。”

“While ICE Homeland Security Investigations is not able to comment on any active investigations, HSI is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found,” a DHS spokesperson tells WIRED. 国土安全部发言人告诉《连线》：“虽然 ICE 国土安全调查局无法对任何正在进行的调查发表评论，但 HSI 正在积极根除和调查任何可以发现的选举欺诈行为。”

The White House did not comment on ICE’s possible use of ELITE to track noncitizen voters in a statement provided to WIRED. 白宫在提供给《连线》的一份声明中，没有就 ICE 可能使用 ELITE 追踪非公民选民一事发表评论。

Got a Tip? Are you a current or former government employee who knows something we should know about voter fraud investigations—or anything else? We’d like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at DavidGilbert.01. 有线索吗？您是现任或前任政府雇员，知道我们应该了解的关于选民欺诈调查或其他任何事情吗？我们很想听听您的意见。请使用非工作手机或电脑，通过 Signal 安全地联系记者 DavidGilbert.01。

The claim that noncitizens are voting in numbers sufficient to sway the outcomes of US elections has been a central narrative pushed by the Trump administration in the run-up to next month’s midterms. All available evidence shows that noncitizen voting is vanishingly rare. 关于非公民投票数量足以左右美国选举结果的说法，一直是特朗普政府在下个月中期选举前推动的核心叙事。所有现有证据都表明，非公民投票的情况极其罕见。

DHS, under secretary Markwayne Mullin, has led the charge on identifying noncitizen voters but has so far only found a handful of possible cases. Earlier this week, the Justice Department announced it had brought charges in 16 cases involving foreign nationals allegedly committing voting-related crimes. (All were lawful permanent residents.) Last month, a whistleblower alleged that federal employees directed by DHS leadership may have broken the law when they searched state websites for illegally registered voters. 在部长马克韦恩·穆林（Markwayne Mullin）的领导下，国土安全部带头识别非公民选民，但迄今为止只发现了少数几个可能的案例。本周早些时候，司法部宣布已对 16 起涉及外国公民涉嫌犯下投票相关罪行的案件提起诉讼。（所有人均为合法永久居民。）上个月，一名举报人称，联邦雇员在国土安全部领导层的指示下，在搜索州政府网站寻找非法登记选民时可能触犯了法律。

While Mullin and the Trump administration have been vocal with their claims about noncitizen voting and short-term victories ahead of the midterms, in the background, ICE appears to have been working on tools that will work in the long term. 虽然穆林和特朗普政府在中期选举前大声疾呼关于非公民投票和短期胜利的说法，但在幕后，ICE 似乎一直在开发长期有效的工具。

The May 26 email sent under a “Voter Fraud” subject line characterizes a weekly report as emphasizing “a network-based investigative approach, prioritizing organization and facilitation analysis over individual leads, now stated as a strategic direction.” 5 月 26 日以“选民欺诈”为主题发送的电子邮件将一份每周报告描述为强调“一种基于网络的调查方法，优先考虑组织和协助分析，而非个人线索，这现已被定为战略方向。”

The language used in the documents related to the agency’s new approach to identifying voter fraud suggests this system was not live or even in pre-deployment at the time, but rather being built for the future, Sharma believes. 夏尔马认为，文件中关于该机构识别选民欺诈的新方法的措辞表明，该系统在当时并未投入使用，甚至没有处于预部署阶段，而是正在为未来进行构建。

“I could be wrong,” says Sharma, “but there’s a reason you choose to build voter fraud [investigations] within DHS when it does not intuitively fall within what you would think of as DHS’s purview, and I think it’s because of the authorities, the infrastructure, the vendor relationships, the contract vehicles, and privileges. There’s just a lot of synergies you can take advantage of.” 夏尔马说：“我可能是错的，但你选择在国土安全部内部建立选民欺诈[调查]是有原因的，尽管这在直觉上并不属于你认为的国土安全部的职权范围。我认为这是因为其拥有的权力、基础设施、供应商关系、合同工具和特权。有很多协同效应是可以利用的。”