Federal judge rejects Trump admin lawsuit seeking MichigaA federal judge dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit seeking access to Michigan’s voter rolls

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration seeking to acquire Michigan’s voter rolls.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou, a Trump appointee, is the latest in a series of legal losses related to the acquisition of sensitive voter information.

The Trump administration has sued several states over voter information in an effort to force them to clean up their voter rolls.

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President Donald Trump has tried through lawsuits to get states to turn over their voter rolls, but judges have blocked his efforts in a number of states. (Getty Images)

Attorney General Pam Bondi argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 gave her the power to force states to turn over their lists. In a 23-page brief, Jarbou disagreed, saying the law applied to voter requests.

“If the distinction between voter registration applications and voter registration lists is too pedantic, it is a pedantic distinction made by Congress, and it is Congress’s prerogative to make distinctions that may seem unnecessary to a person reading the law more than six decades after its passage, the judge wrote.

“It goes without saying that the existence of a statewide computerized voter roll was not foreseeable in the 1960 Congress, and it is possible that lawmakers would have included such a list in the CRA’s disclosure provisions if they had imagined the possibility,” Jarbou added.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 allowed her to force states to turn over their voter rolls, but a federal judge in Michigan disagreed. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The judge noted that the court is not a “telepathic time traveler” and therefore “cannot rewrite Congressional legislation to cover a situation that Congress might not have anticipated.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to White House and Michigan officials for comment.

Since May 2025, the Trump administration has required nearly all states and Washington, D.C., to turn over election-related records and data, such as full copies of statewide voter registration lists and ballots from previous elections, as well as access to voting materials, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit seeking Michigan voter registration information. (Getty Images)

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The federal government maintains that it needs these records to ensure states ensure voter records are accurate and eligible voters are excluded to prevent fraud.