Trump DOJ goes 0 for 22 as Nevada court rejects voter roll demand

A federal court in Nevada Friday became the 22nd consecutive district court to reject the Trump administration’s campaign to force states to turn over their unredacted voter rolls, dismissing the Department of Justice’s case and denying its motion to compel.

U.S. District Judge Anne Traum said she was “joining every other court to have addressed the issue so far” in rejecting DOJ’s attempt to use Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to obtain Nevada’s statewide voter registration list.

Traum held that Nevada’s voter list is not the kind of record covered by Title III because it is created and continuously updated by state election officials rather than a record that “comes into” their possession. She cited the Sixth Circuit’s recent ruling against DOJ and wrote that the ordinary meaning of the phrase is to “acquire,” “obtain” or “receive” something.

The judge also found a separate defect where DOJ failed to provide the factual “basis and purpose” required for its demand.

“Neither letter purported to allege facts showing a need for an investigation into Nevada’s state election system,” Traum wrote. “The lack of a basis is a sufficient reason to conclude that Secretary Aguilar did not, on the facts alleged in the complaint, violate the CRA by refusing to produce the unredacted voter file. The Government has provided ‘no basis — none.’”

DOJ had demanded Nevada’s unredacted voter file, including voters’ birthdates, driver’s license and Social Security numbers, saying it wanted to assess the state’s compliance with federal voter-list maintenance laws. Nevada instead provided access to its publicly available voter list.

The Nevada loss came roughly an hour after another tremendous setback for DOJ. 

Earlier Friday, the full Sixth Circuit declined to rehear the department’s appeal in its Michigan voter-roll case, leaving intact a panel ruling that rejected DOJ’s legal theory.

The back-to-back defeats deepen an already sweeping losing streak for the department, which has continued to argue that Title III gives it authority to obtain states’ full voter databases even as courts around the country have repeatedly rejected that theory.