The U.S. Attorney's Office will delay subpoenas seeking massive amounts of state and local voter data, and it clarified Thursday that it doesn't want to know how North Carolinians voted.

In fact, federal investigators may not need completed ballots at all as they delve North Carolina voting records as part of a grand jury investigation connected to U.S. immigration enforcement. U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon's office agreed Thursday to work with state and local elections officials to dial back a request that once seemed likely to pull 20 million voting records, saying concerns over voter privacy and election officials' ability to prepare for the November elections while also pulling documents had not fallen on deaf ears.

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Compliance with these subpoenas can wait until January, provided the desired records are preserved, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sebastian Kielmanovich told the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement in a letter Thursday. Then, production can be handled on a rolling basis to avoid burying elections officials in a massive request, the letter states.

Any ballots that are pulled can be redacted to avoid revealing whom individuals voted for, Kielmanovich wrote.

"We want to prevent disclosure of any voter's actual choice of candidates in any race," his letter states. "That specific information is not relevant to our inquiry."

The letter followed a day-and-a-half of wide-eyed concern from state and local election officials in 44 targeted counties, as well as from others worried that the federal government was big-footing its way into an election. Congressmen David Price and G.K. Butterfield, both Democrats, called for official inquiries into the subpoenas, which were issued on behalf of a grand jury meeting in Wilmington and as part of an investigation involving at least one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

The congressmen's call came before Higdon's office dialed back its request, but spokespeople for the congressmen said Thursday afternoon that there are still concerns and that congressional Democrats from the state were working together on an inquiry request to the inspectors general for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.

Thursday's letter shone no new light on what investigators are looking for. Investigators whose names appear on the subpoenas, though, were also involved in a federal grand jury case last month that charged 19 foreign nationals with voting in the 2016 U.S. elections.

State elections officials had said the subpoenas would cover some 20 million documents, including more than 2 million ballots that could be used to determine how people voted.

Whether a person voted or not in North Carolina is a public record. How they voted is not, but with early votes and absentee ballots, records are kept that can be used to track that. State law requires those tracking numbers remain confidential.

Allison Riggs, a voting rights attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said she's been buried in email from concerned voters since word of the subpoenas broke late Tuesday.

"People are afraid of what's going to happen retribution-wise when the Justice Department, when the federal government, finds out who I voted for," Riggs said. "Small-government conservatives should be screaming bloody murder right now."

Other critics said the subpoenas are intended to suppress voter turnout in some of the counties with the highest numbers of black voters. The 44 counties are home to 39 percent of the state's voters and 46 percent of black voters.

"Instead of spending our time and our money and our efforts making them feel like it's worthwhile to be part of this process, we're scaring the heck out of them," Riggs said.

Even if the government doesn't want to know who voted for which candidates, she said, the state should fight the subpoenas.

"Just try to wrap your head around how long it would to redact 15 million voter files," she said.

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This story changed several times Thursday. A previous version of it follows ...

A pair of North Carolina congressmen called Thursday on the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to abandon subpoenas seeking millions of voting records in the state and said they will call for investigations into the "legality and motivations" of the DOJ's demand.

Democratic 4th District Congressman David Price and 1st District Congressman G.K. Butterfield said the subpoenas sent out late last week by U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon's office, seem "clearly designed to disenfranchise and intimidate voters and to disrupt the administration of an impending election with major state and national implications."

They said they'll ask the inspectors general for the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, to probe the issue. They'll also seek committee hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives, they said.

Republican 9th District Congressman Robert Pittenger put out a statement on the matter as well Thursday, responding to WRAL News questions.

"While I fully support appropriate investigation into voter fraud, ICE must also remember we are just 60 days from the next election," Pittenger, who lost his re-election bid in the May primary, said via email. "Proper preparation for the next election is just as vital as investigating potential fraud. ICE should have a very compelling and justifiable reason to subpoena election records at this time, or should wait until after November 6th."

State elections officials have said the subpoenas cover some 20 million documents, including more than 2 million ballots that could be used to determine whom individual people voted for.

They've also said the massive request, and a Sept. 25 deadline to produce records to a federal grand jury in Wilmington, will make it difficult to prepare for the Nov. 6 election, particularly in rural counties with fewer employees.

Spokespeople for U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee that has oversight for DOJ and ICE, declined comment, saying the senators don't discuss open DOJ investigations.

Republican 2nd District Congressman George Holding, who had Higdon's job in the Eastern District before running for Congress, said in a statement that investigators need time to do their jobs.

"As a former federal prosecutor, I know voter fraud is a crime, and when a U.S. Attorney has evidence people voted illegally, or that people who are not U.S. Citizens voted, he has a duty to investigate to defend the sanctity of the ballot box," Holding said. "Rather than turning this investigation into voter fraud into another political circus, egged on by activist political groups, the media should take a deep breath and allow the U.S. Attorney to determine whether crimes were committed."

The subpoenas seek documents from the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement and from the 44 counties that make up the Eastern District of North Carolina, Higdon's territory in the Department of Justice. The state board has an emergency meeting Friday, and elections officials could ask a judge to block the subpoena.

Allison Riggs, attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which has been vocally opposed to the subpoenas, said her group planned to file a memo with the state board Thursday afternoon urging them to do so.

Higdon and others tied to the grand jury investigation have declined to say why they want the records, which is typical of federal investigations that usually proceed in secret. Some of the same investigators named on the subpoenas, including a special agent with ICE, were involved in a case that charged 19 people last month with voting despite not being U.S. citizens.

Whether a person voted or not in North Carolina is a public record. Whom they voted for is not. It's unclear why this deeper dive, pulling ballots cast, voter registration records and absentee ballot applications, would be needed.

Former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina Walter C. Holton, now in private practice in Winston-Salem, said not to read anything into investigators' silence. Higdon is "really not at liberty to say anything or even confirm or deny the existence of an investigation," Holton said.

But Holton also said the subpoenas are disturbingly broad. It appears the Department of Justice is trying to back up accusations of voter fraud, he said, but having a grand jury involved "leads me to believe that there has to be more meat on the bones than just that."