Justice Department forgets to serve its own lawsuit in voter rolls fight

The Justice Department’s efforts to force states to turn over voter rolls have failed in Washington state, where federal lawyers appear to have forgotten to serve state officials with their lawsuit.

A magistrate judge ultimately asked the government to explain its failure or the case would be dismissed.

The department later said it had late notified the state – but did not explain the delay.

And the state said the federal government messed things up again, apparently serving official notice of the lawsuit on someone who wasn’t even authorized to accept service on behalf of Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the named defendant.

Magistrate Judge S. Kate Vaughan was unhappy with the developments and demanded to know exactly what was happening. She said the Justice Department “failed to comply” with her order to explain the missed deadline, and questioned whether the government’s lawyers “made an inaccurate statement to this court.”

“It is now clear that the plaintiff failed to serve the defendant in a timely manner. It remains unclear whether and how service of process was actually carried out on the defendant,” she said.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Washington is one of nearly 30 lawsuits filed by the Justice Department to try to recover states’ voter registration records. So far things haven’t gone well, with all three judges who ruled on the case siding with the states and against the administration.