Trump DOJ appeals new round of voter roll losses, expanding crusade to 8 circuits

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice appealed its latest batch of defeats Thursday, expanding its nationwide campaign for private voter data into eight federal appeals courts despite losing all 17 district court rulings to date.

The department filed notices of appeal in Connecticut, New York and New Mexico, where federal judges dismissed DOJ lawsuits seeking unredacted statewide voter registration files and denied its efforts to compel production of the records.

As of Thursday, appeals from recent losses in Virginia and West Virginia had not yet been filed

The Connecticut and New York cases will go to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, marking the first voter roll appeals from DOJ’s campaign to reach that court. The New Mexico appeal will be heard by the Tenth Circuit, also for the first time. 

The new filings bring DOJ’s voter roll crusade into eight of the nation’s regional appeals courts: the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th Circuits.

DOJ has yet to win a single court order requiring a state to surrender its unredacted statewide voter file.

Before Thursday’s latest Kentucky ruling, the department had lost all 16 voter roll cases that had reached a district court decision, plus its first appeal. 

Kentucky made 17.

U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed DOJ’s Kentucky lawsuit with prejudice and denied its motion to compel the state’s voter records. Boom ruled that she was bound by the Sixth Circuit’s recent decision upholding Michigan’s win over the department.

DOJ may not immediately appeal the Kentucky loss. The department has asked the full Sixth Circuit to reconsider the Michigan ruling through en banc review. Before Boom ruled, DOJ asked her to delay the Kentucky case while that process played out, but she refused, writing that district courts must follow binding circuit precedent unless and until the appeals court changes it.

The New Mexico appeal also included a minor correction that added to the department’s mounting paper trail.

DOJ first filed a notice stating that the United States was appealing “by and through the Attorney General” and listing Emil Kiehne as the district’s first assistant U.S. attorney. It later filed a corrected notice changing the language to “Acting Attorney General” and replacing Kiehne with Ry Ellison.

The substance of the appeal remained unchanged.

The lawsuits are part of DOJ’s effort to obtain complete voter files containing information such as names, birthdates, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Courts across the country have repeatedly ruled that the federal voting laws DOJ cites do not give the department authority to seize those databases.