Federal judges dismiss DOJ lawsuits seeking voter registration data

PORTLAND, Maine -- Federal judges in Maine and Wisconsin on Thursday dismissed lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to compel the states to hand over detailed voter registration information.

U.S. District Judge James Pederson in Wisconsin said the state’s voter registration list is not a record that can be requested under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, as President Donald Trump's administration argued. In Maine, Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker described the government's claim as “half-hearted” and granted a state motion to dismiss it.

The rulings were the latest in a string of defeats for the Trump administration in its attempts to force states to turn over voter rolls. In addition to Maine and Wisconsin, judges have rejected similar attempts in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island, In Georgia, a judge dismissed a DOJ lawsuit because it had been filed in the wrong city, prompting the government to refile elsewhere.

The DOJ has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force release of the detailed voter data. It includes information such as dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

Bianca Shaw, state director of Common Cause Wisconsin, called the ruling “a massive victory for voter privacy and a rejection of federal overreach.”

“The decision ensures voters are protected from an unauthorized national database that would have been a goldmine for hackers and a tool for intimidation,” she said in a statement. “Our elections remain safe, secure, and in the hands of Wisconsinites where they belong,”

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat and Trump opponent who is running for governor, said the ruling affirms that states and not the federal government are in charge of elections and voting. Trump's administration has sought the voter data since last year in Maine and elsewhere.

“Let me be clear — Trump and the DOJ may continue to try to interfere with free and fair elections run by the states. We will not let them,” Bellows said in a statement.

Officials with the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the rulings or a potential appeal.

In Wisconsin, Common Cause, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, Forward Latino and three voters intervened in the case in opposition to the government’s attempts to obtain the state’s voter rolls.

Doug Poland, director of litigation for Law Forward, a Wisconsin-based liberal law firm, called the Trump administration’s moves “thinly-masked efforts to manipulate and subvert future elections.”

“The court recognized this as an illegal attempt to gather and weaponize data on Americans, dressed up in the language of voting rights enforcement,” he said.

Judge Walker, a Trump appointee, ruled in Maine that the responsibility for managing elections lies with the states.

“Under our Constitution, states are the primary regulators and administrators of elections for federal office, unless Congress passes legislation that preempts that framework," Walker wrote.

Pederson, the Wisconsin judge, was an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

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Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin.