Justice Department Sues 30 States and D.C. to Pry Loose Their Voter Rolls

The Justice Department has sued Washington, D.C., and 30 states for refusing to hand over their statewide voter registration lists, escalating a nationwide fight over sensitive personal data that has now reached federal appeals courts — and, so far, has not gone the government's way.

Since May, the department has pressed nearly every state and the District of Columbia to turn over election records and data, including full copies of statewide voter registration lists, ballots from previous elections, and in some cases access to voting equipment. The requested files can contain driver's license numbers and partial or full Social Security numbers, the kind of information that state and federal privacy laws are written to shield. The DOJ says it needs the records to assess whether states are complying with federal mandates to maintain accurate voter rolls.

Most states have resisted. Thirty states plus D.C. declined to produce their confidential files and were sued, arguing that the department has no authority to vacuum up voters' personal information and that handing it over would violate privacy protections. To date, no court at either the district or appellate level has ruled in the Justice Department's favor.

The clearest setback came from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected the department's demand that Michigan surrender non-public portions of its voter files. The panel said Michigan was not obligated to produce confidential data — which could include Social Security and driver's license numbers — to the federal government. Voting-rights organizations, meanwhile, have gone on offense, with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups suing the DOJ to block what they describe as a national "surveil-and-purge" voter database.

Not every state has fought. At least 12, including Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming, have voluntarily complied with the demands. That split — roughly a dozen states cooperating while 30 and D.C. litigate — has produced a patchwork in which a voter's exposure to federal data collection depends heavily on where they live.

Adding to the pressure, the department has warned some election officials that they could face possible criminal charges over how they maintain their rolls, a threat that voting-rights advocates say is designed to intimidate local administrators. Trackers maintained by the Brennan Center for Justice and the University of Wisconsin's State Democracy Research Initiative now catalog dozens of demands and lawsuits, a scorecard of a legal campaign whose outcome could reshape how much of Americans' voter information the federal government can compel states to surrender.