Even In Trump Country, State Election Officials Buck DOJ’s Latest Attempt to Seize Voter Rolls

President Trump’s Justice Department is doubling down on its months-long crusade to access sensitive voter information in red and blue states across the country. As it stands, the DOJ is suing 30 states – both Republican and Democratic – that have refused to succumb to the department’s unprecedented demands for voter rolls data.

On Thursday, the DOJ filed lawsuits against five more states, including four red states, whose officials refused to comply with the department’s order. This most recent round of lawsuits targets New Jersey, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah and Kentucky. Despite these new legal challenges, state officials, by and large, continue to strongly oppose the administration’s demands.

For months now, the Trump Justice Department has demanded sensitive voter information, including driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers, from at least 44 states and Washington, DC. The majority of those states, including the five sued Tuesday, refused to comply with the request and called out the federal government for trying to seize information to which it was simply not entitled.

The DOJ relies on provisions of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) as the basis for its prosecution. None of these provisions, however, give the federal government the authority to require this type of protected personally identifiable information, as experts told TPM.

It is unclear why the DOJ is attempting to access this information. Election experts have previously told TPM that the entire campaign appears to be an effort to sow doubt in state election systems and an attempt to exert control over election administration — something the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to manage.

Trump’s DOJ framed its voter rolls requests as some kind of election integrity effort. This is just one aspect of Trump’s campaign to continue spreading lies about the security of the nation’s elections as he threatens to “nationalize” voting ahead of the midterm elections.

“Accurate and well-maintained voter rolls are a necessary condition for the election integrity that the American people deserve,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Thursday, regarding the five new lawsuits. “This latest round of litigation underscores that the Department of Justice is fulfilling its duty to ensure transparency, maintenance of voter rolls, and security of elections across the country. »

In response, secretaries of state and state election officials pushed back against these requests and the resulting legal challenges.

“Kentucky’s elections are a national success story, and the Department of Justice has repeatedly recognized in court our successful work to clean up the dirty voter rolls I inherited,” Republican Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adam told TPM. “Kentucky law protects voters’ personal information, and I will not willfully commit a data breach by providing Kentuckians’ personal data to the federal bureaucracy unless required to do so by court order.”

Republican Mike Queen, West Virginia’s deputy secretary of state, also said the state would not give in to Bondi’s demands. West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner is also a Republican.

“The reports published Thursday afternoon are the first we have heard or seen regarding a lawsuit targeting the state of West Virginia. We have not been briefed. Regardless, I think Secretary Warner’s previous comments to the Department of Justice were quite clear. The federal government will not obtain any personal information about West Virginia voters as long as Kris Warner is Secretary of State,” he said.

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport called the DOJ’s lawsuit “meritless” in a statement to TPM.

“We are committed to protecting the privacy of our state’s residents and will defend against this lawsuit in court,” Davenport added.

And in a statement on X on Thursday, Utah Lieutenant Governor Deidre M. Henderson emphasized that the DOJ is not entitled to the information it demands.

“Neither state nor federal law authorizes the Department of Justice to collect private information about law-abiding American citizens. Utahns can be assured that my office will always follow the Constitution and the law, protect the rights of voters, and administer free and fair elections.”

Although the DOJ’s campaign has encountered resistance from state election officials and, in some cases, the courts, the DOJ does not appear to be backing down. So far, federal courts have dismissed the department’s lawsuits in Oregon, California and Michigan. The DOJ appealed these decisions.