Updated

Updated · USA TODAY · Jul 17

Federal Courts Reject DOJ Voter-Roll Demands in All 16 Cases as 7 Trump Judges Rule Against It

Updated

Updated · USA TODAY · Jul 17

Federal Courts Reject DOJ Voter-Roll Demands in All 16 Cases as 7 Trump Judges Rule Against It

Q: After 16 consecutive court losses, what is the DOJ's new strategy for obtaining state voter data?

After 16 straight losses, the DOJ’s main new tactic is to ask appeals courts to rely on the DOJ’s own internal legal opinion rather than favorable court precedent, which it does not have. In recent appellate filings, including cases involving Michigan and western states, the department submitted a newly issued Office of Legal Counsel memo as “supplemental authority,” arguing that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 lets it compel states to turn over unredacted statewide voter rolls and share that data with the Department of Homeland Security for citizenship checks. At the same time, the DOJ is not relying only on litigation. It is also pursuing voluntary data-sharing agreements with states that are willing to cooperate. At least 17 states have either provided or promised voter registration data, and some arrangements have been formalized through memoranda of understanding designed to govern how the information is transferred and protected. The broader strategy remains tied to using state voter data to compare registration records against DHS systems, especially the SAVE database, to identify suspected noncitizens. That effort has drawn legal challenges of its own, including rulings questioning the legality and accuracy of expanded federal data-matching. So, after repeated courtroom defeats, the DOJ’s approach has shifted toward a mix of appeals backed by its own legal memo and voluntary state cooperation, while continuing to press for access to voter data for federal cross-checking.

3 articles · Updated · USA TODAY · Jul 17

Sixteen federal rulings have now rejected the Justice Department’s demands for unredacted state voter rolls, including addresses, birth dates and driver’s license or Social Security numbers.
Judges said election administration belongs to the states, not the federal government, and several states argued the requests would create a national surveillance tool despite scant evidence of widespread noncitizen voting.
Seven of the 15 district judges who ruled against the DOJ were Trump appointees, and Republican officials in Idaho, Kentucky, Utah and West Virginia also fought the requests on privacy and state-law grounds.
The losses come as the Nov. 3 midterms approach and a federal deadline after Aug. 5 limits broad voter-roll purges, though the DOJ says it will keep appealing and pressing states to use the SAVE database.
The legal fight stems from Trump’s March 2025 order targeting noncitizen voting, but state audits cited in the cases found only small numbers of noncitizen registrations or ballots among millions of voters.