Appeals court rejects New Hampshire’s bid to quickly dismiss DOJ’s voter data lawsuit

By Matt Cohen

The seal of the U.S. Department of Justice on April 27, 2026 in Washington, D.C. The Department of Justice charged 31 year old Cole Thomas Anderson with attempted assassination of the president of the United States after he attempted to enter the White House Correspondents Dinner with two firearms Saturday evening. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will soon explain to a federal appeals court why New Hampshire must hand over its unredacted voter rolls, after the court rejected the state’s bid to have the case thrown out. 

The DOJ heading to court potentially sets the department up for the next loss in its wildly unsuccessful attempt to gain access to states’ unredacted voter rolls.

After a Republican-appointed federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s New Hampshire lawsuit in June, the department appealed to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan (R) has argued that the 1st Circuit didn’t need a full briefing on the lawsuit because the DOJ’s case is so weak. 

“This appeal should be so dismissed as there is no substantial question as to the facial insufficiency of the federal government’s demand for New Hampshire’s Statewide Voter Registration List (SVRL),” Scanlan wrote in his motion for summary disposition.

But the 1st Circuit denied Scanlan’s request, allowing the court to hear the DOJ make its case for why it’s demanding private voter data from every state. 

Last summer, the DOJ demanded access to each state’s full, unredacted voter rolls under the guise of “voter list maintenance.” After most states refused to comply, citing privacy concerns and claiming the request was unlawful, the DOJ launched a legal blitz and sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., to obtain the unredacted voter rolls. 

The department argued that, under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), states must hand over full voter registration records upon request to ensure clean voter rolls.

But states weren’t buying that argument. Scanlan asserted that not only was the DOJ’s case weak, but it was also doing a poor job arguing it.

“Setting aside the factual accuracy of the assertion that the federal government’s basis is obvious or easily inferable from the purpose stated in the letter, the law clearly and unequivocally requires demands made under the CRA to contain a written statement of the basis therefor and not simply that the basis be somehow inferable from the purpose,” Scanlan said in his motion. “This is not a high bar.”

The courts weren’t buying it either: So far, the DOJ is 0-23 in its voter roll grab — and it also lost an appeal to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The DOJ’s voter roll losses in Maine, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts have all also been appealed to the 1st Circuit, meaning a loss for the department in New Hampshire could affect those state voter grab cases as well.