Trump DOJ argues Georgia can conduct last-minute voter purges, despite federal law

The Justice Department is arguing that Georgia could remove voters from the rolls during a key federal protection period meant to prevent last-minute disenfranchisement — as long as the removals are done individually and based on information the federal government provides.

In a filing in its lawsuit seeking Georgia’s unredacted statewide voter registration list last week, DOJ argued that the National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day “quiet period” does not prevent the state from investigating and removing voters individually if DOJ flags them as potentially ineligible.

The quiet period is one of the NVRA’s central protections for voters. It generally bars states from carrying out systematic voter removal programs within 90 days of a federal election, a safeguard meant to prevent eligible voters from being wrongly kicked off the rolls too close to Election Day, when they may not have enough time to challenge their removal.

But DOJ is now arguing that the protection does not stop Georgia from removing voters in an “individualized fashion if the United States alerted the State of the possibility that people on their rolls were ineligible to vote.”

The argument came in a filing asking for an emergency ruling tied to DOJ’s effort to disqualify U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross from the Georgia voter roll case. 

The underlying lawsuit is part of the Trump administration’s nationwide scheme to obtain voter registration data from states, including sensitive personal information contained in statewide voter files.

DOJ says it needs the redacted records to investigate whether states are properly maintaining their voter rolls. Voting rights advocates and election officials have warned that the demands exceed DOJ’s authority, threaten voter privacy and could fuel improper purges of eligible voters.

In Georgia, DOJ pushed back on arguments from Black Voters Matter Fund, a pro-voting intervenor* in the case, that the NVRA’s 90-day quiet period undermines DOJ’s claim that emergency relief is needed. 

DOJ said the quiet period does not “foreclose relief” because it only limits programs that “systematically” remove voters from the rolls.

If accepted by the court, DOJ’s argument could give states a way to remove voters close to an election based on federal referrals, so long as those removals are framed as individualized rather than part of a broader purge program.

DOJ is leaning on a narrow carveout in Arcia v. Florida Secretary of State — a case that is better known for holding that Florida violated the NVRA by conducting a systematic purge of alleged noncitizens too close to an election. While the 11th Circuit barred that kind of broad purge, it also said the quiet period does not prohibit removals based on individualized information. DOJ is now trying to use that distinction in Georgia, arguing the state could remove voters one by one if the federal government flags them as potentially ineligible.

But DOJ has taken a different posture in the Ninth Circuit, where it is bound by a recent ruling in Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes. In that case, the Ninth Circuit held that the NVRA’s quiet period applies to efforts by states to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

In its Oregon appeal, DOJ acknowledged that ruling, writing that Oregon “may be further limited” by Mi Familia Vota and must finish systemic removal efforts before the 90-day cutoff.

“Oregon may be further limited in that quest by this Court’s holding in Mi Familia Vota. v. Fontes that the NVRA’s ‘Quiet Period,’ applies to efforts by states to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election,” DOJ wrote in March.

DOJ has also raised a related argument in its Michigan appeal before the Sixth Circuit, where it argued that the quiet period does not apply to noncitizens who “could never have qualified as ‘voters’” in the first place.

“But this does not apply to efforts by a State to remove noncitizens who could never have qualified as ‘voters,’” DOJ wrote in that case.

The argument comes as DOJ’s broader voter roll campaign has struggled in court. 

Federal judges in California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arizona, Wisconsin and Maine have dismissed DOJ lawsuits seeking voter registration data. DOJ has appealed each loss, sending the cases to federal appeals courts across the country.

Still, the Georgia filing highlights a separate but related front in the fight: what happens if DOJ obtains the voter data it is seeking?

The department’s latest argument suggests it could then alert states to voters it believes may be ineligible, even inside the NVRA’s 90-day protection window, and argue that state officials can remove those voters individually.

For voting rights advocates, that could weaken one of the most important federal safeguards against last-minute purges — especially in the months before a high-stakes federal election.

*The intervenor-defendants in this case are represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG firm chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.