The Trump administration is escalating voting rights lawsuits across the country, with the Department of Justice targeting 30 states and Washington, D.C. to force the release of sensitive voter registration data, even as federal courts have rejected the DOJ’s arguments in every case decided so far.
The administration has filed lawsuits seeking unredacted voter rolls from the 30 states and D.C., claiming it needs the data to identify ineligible voters. But according to Eileen O’Connor, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice who spent eight years in the DOJ’s voting section, the legal foundation for these demands is crumbling. “Eight courts have issued rulings in these cases, and the DOJ has lost each one,” O’Connor told The Guardian.
The lawsuits represent part of a broader Trump administration strategy to reshape voting access ahead of the November midterm elections. Beyond the voter data litigation, the administration has issued an executive order to restrict mail-in voting, launched FBI investigations into debunked 2020 election fraud claims in swing states, and installed election deniers in key positions at the DOJ and other agencies.
On the specific issue of voter purges, the DOJ is now arguing in Georgia that states can remove individual voters from registration rolls right before elections, circumventing the National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day “quiet period” that bars systematic purges close to federal elections. The DOJ contends that if the federal government identifies potentially ineligible voters and sends states a list, states can remove them one-by-one without violating the law.
Democracy Docket reported that the DOJ is relying on a narrow reading of a 2014 court decision to support this argument, but voting rights advocates warn it would allow mass removals of eligible voters with little time for correction before Election Day. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a similar argument last year, ruling that Congress clearly intended the quiet period to prevent systematic voter removal mistakes regardless of who initiates the process.
Election experts say the administration’s multi-pronged push reflects unfounded claims about voting fraud. “Trump continues to falsely claim that voting by foreign nationals, which is illegal and rarely occurs, and practices such as mail-in voting resulted in a fraudulent election in 2020,” said Larry Noble, former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, in an interview with The Guardian. Multiple audits and lawsuits have found no evidence of meaningful fraud in the 2020 election.
The DOJ’s aggressive stance marks a sharp departure from its traditional role protecting voting rights. The voting section of the Civil Rights Division has been staffed with election deniers and lawyers involved in attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to reporting by Democracy Docket. The department’s staff in the voting section has been cut from about 30 lawyers to less than half that number.
States and voting rights groups are fighting back in court. Voting rights organizations including Common Cause, the ACLU, and Protect Democracy have filed lawsuits to block the DOJ’s voter data collection efforts and the administration’s executive order on mail-in voting. Some Republican election officials have also expressed alarm. “These attempts are clearly unconstitutional. States run elections, not the feds,” said veteran Republican consultant Charlie Black in comments to The Guardian.
Sources
- The Guardian — Reported on the Trump administration’s broad-front attack on voting rights, including the 30 state lawsuits, DOJ losses in court, and expert analysis from voting rights advocates and former officials.
- Democracy Docket — Detailed the DOJ’s argument about voter purges during the quiet period and the legal precedents being cited.
- Brennan Center for Justice — Confirmed the DOJ has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., and tracked the outcomes of the lawsuits.
- ACLU — Reported on federal court dismissals of DOJ lawsuits seeking voter data.
- State Democracy Research Initiative — Maintained a tracker of DOJ lawsuits seeking states’ sensitive voter data.
