Trump-appointed judge rejects DOJ attempt to access Michigan voter rolls

By Jen Rice

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi at a press conference at the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. on Friday, February 6, 2026. (Photo by Annabelle Gordon/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) efforts to obtain Michigan’s unredacted voter rolls, a bruising setback for the department’s sweeping national effort to force states to disclose sensitive voter data. 

The DOJ filed the lawsuit in September after Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) refused to hand over voter list maintenance information and an unredacted copy of the state’s voter registration list. 

Michigan is just one of two dozen states wrestling with the unusual demand from the DOJ.

Senate Democrats have warned that the DOJ is deploying an “intensifying pressure campaign” to “coerce” states to hand over the requested information. 

U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou ruled Tuesday to dismiss the DOJ’s suit, concluding that federal law does not require states to disclose the requested records.

“There is simply no basis in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States’s suggestion that it can file a HAVA [Help America Vote Act] claim, allege no violations of HAVA, and obtain information to support its (as-yet-nonexistent) claim via discovery,” Jarbou wrote.

The Michigan ruling comes on the heels of a similar decision last week from an Oregon judge, who concluded that the DOJ can no longer be presumed to be acting in good faith.

*Defendant-intervenors are represented in the lawsuit by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.