▶ Watch Video: Legal analysis on whether states or the federal government decide election rules
Washington — President Trump’s administration has mounted efforts in nearly all 50 states to obtain their complete voter rolls containing sensitive information about registered voters in their states.
The Justice Department has argued that the information is needed to ensure states are complying with two federal voting laws, the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act, which aim to ensure states have programs in place for maintaining accurate voter rolls.
The administration sent letters to most of the states last year seeking unredacted electronic copies of their statewide voter registration lists, which include voters’ birthdates, addresses, partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
A number of states have turned over publicly available versions of their voter rolls, but have declined to provide their complete lists. In response, the Justice Department has filed lawsuits against 30 states and the District of Columbia in an effort to force them to hand over the voter data.
So far, the Trump administration has lost 26 of those cases. Federal judges have rejected the Justice Department’s lawsuits for unredacted voter rolls from:
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- District of Columbia
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Kentucky
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
A federal judge dismissed the Justice Department’s initial case against Georgia because it was filed in the wrong court, and government lawyers then refiled it. The Justice Department voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against Oklahoma after the state agreed to turn over its voter registration list.
The other cases remain pending. Those are in Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho and Utah.
The Justice Department has appealed most of the decisions dismissing its cases. So far, one appeals court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, has upheld a lower court decision rejecting the administration’s attempt to obtain Michigan’s voter rolls.
The Trump administration’s bids to gain access to states’ unredacted voter registration lists are part of the president’s efforts to exert more power over federal elections. Mr. Trump has signed two executive orders aimed at U.S. elections, though both have been blocked by the courts.
The first executive order, signed last year, would require documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. The second, announced in March, tightens the rules for mail-in voting and requires the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Postal Service to compile and maintain lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.
Mr. Trump is also pushing Congress to enact a package of voting regulations called the SAVE America Act, which would significantly curtail mail-in voting and impose new voter ID requirements.
The president has long taken aim at mail-in voting and claimed it leads to widespread fraud, though he has not put forth evidence in support of those claims. He has also claimed that Democratic states allow noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections. It is a federal crime for noncitizens to vote.
