DOJ Targets Blue States In Voter Roll Lawsuits ‘Driven by Partisanship’

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Maine and Oregon Tuesday, alleging that the states violated federal voting laws by refusing a department demand to hand over their voter rolls. 

But chief election officials for the two states, as well as voting rights experts, accuse the department of deliberately going after only Democratic states, while ignoring Republican-led states that have done the same thing.

They also say there’s nothing in federal voting law requiring states to hand over sensitive voter data to the federal government so it can check their list maintenance practices.

David Becker, the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former trial attorney in DOJ’s voting section, noted that one of the strongest pieces of law on whether or not any sensitive information can be redacted by states before disclosure, comes from a case involving Maine. 

In 2020, the right-wing Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) sued Maine for access to its voter rolls, after the secretary of state refused to grant a request from the group, citing state law. 

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court ruling that the state voter roll must be available for public inspection — allowing groups like PILF access to Maine’s voter roll. But it ruled that “nothing in the text of the NVRA prohibits the appropriate redaction of uniquely or highly sensitive personal information in the Voter File.”

“So, [Maine] seems an odd choice,” Becker said. “It certainly seems that it’s driven by partisanship.”

The lawsuits against Maine and Oregon are the latest escalation in DOJ’s campaign to obtain private voter data from every state. Since May, the department has reached out to at least 35 states, demanding access to voter registration rolls — including individual voters’ sensitive information like driver’s license and social security numbers. 

But Maine and Oregon aren’t the only states that rejected DOJ’s demand. Several other states — including two with Republican chief election officials, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — also have essentially told the department to pound sand.  

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt (R) told DOJ that its request represents a “concerning attempt to expand the federal government’s role in our country’s electoral process.” 

In his letter rejecting DOJ’s demand, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan (R) brought up the “cybersecurity risk” of disclosing private voter data to the department. 

“Divulging any cybersecurity information could harm the integrity of the systems,” Scanlon told DOJ.

“Let’s be clear: this isn’t about secure elections,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read (D) said in a statement to Democracy Docket. “It’s about power and silencing anyone who opposes them. The federal government asked Oregon — and other states — to turn over confidential voter data. I said no. So did other Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State. But now only Democrats are being targeted with lawsuits. That tells you everything you need to know.”

Like Read, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) believes DOJ is deliberately targeting her state for political reasons. 

“Our neighbors in New Hampshire also rejected the Department of Justice’s voter request,” Bellows said at a press conference Wednesday. “So it is not normal that they are targeting just me and Oregon with these lawsuits. Why aren’t they targeting New Hampshire or Pennsylvania, who have Republican secretaries of state who have said no?”

Several other red states — like Alaska, Florida and Utah — willingly handed over the data DOJ asked for. Other GOP-led states, including Kansas and Texas, have either given DOJ partial data or delayed in providing the requested information.

DOJ claims in the lawsuits that both Maine and Oregon violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 by refusing to provide full electronic copies of their statewide voter registration lists and related maintenance data. The department argues in the Oregon lawsuit that federal voting law entitles them to the information “to allow the Attorney General to effectively assess Oregon’s compliance with the requirements of the NVRA and HAVA.”

Justin Levitt, a constitutional law scholar and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Civil Rights division, recently noted that both of those laws put list maintenance squarely in the hands of the states. 

Levitt called the demand for full state voter rolls a “staggering assertion of federal intervention,” which “comes with no citation to any specific statutory provision, and is not supported by any that I’m aware of (nor any historical DOJ practice, nor any judicial precedent).”

Levitt added: “[D]ata on particular individuals isn’t particularly helpful in enforcing the NVRA/HAVA provisions the letters cite.”

Becker agreed that DOJ’s authority in enforcing federal voting laws does not entitle it access to individual voters’ private data. 

“The NVRA, and through the NVRA, the Help America Vote Act, are both pretty clear that states are required to do list maintenance and have the authority to do list maintenance,” he said. “The federal government’s authority only resides in ensuring that the states are engaged in a reasonable general program of list maintenance.”

Becker called DOJ’s claims “very, very poorly supported,” adding: “I would be very surprised if courts go along with these claims.”