The Trump administration wants the name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number and partial Social Security number of every registered voter in the United States.
States have refused. Courts have agreed with the states. And the Justice Department keeps filing new lawsuits anyway.
On Monday, a federal judge threw out the case against New Hampshire. It was the tenth time a court has said no.
What the Trump Administration Is Demanding
The Justice Department has sued to force the release of detailed state voter data in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The data they are demanding includes dates of birth, home addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers for every registered voter.
The government claims it needs the data to ensure states are complying with federal election laws related to maintaining voter registration lists.
That is the official explanation. But you do not need the Social Security numbers and home addresses of every voter in America to check whether a state is keeping its rolls clean. States have election officials for that. States have auditors for that. States have courts for that.
What you need that data for is something else entirely.
What the Court Said
U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante, an appointee of President George W. Bush, dismissed the case against New Hampshire on Monday. He found that the Justice Department’s demand did not comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and that the department failed to allege any actual violation under the Help America Vote Act. His ruling makes clear that federal law does not allow the attorney general unrestricted access to New Hampshire’s voter list to conduct a line-by-line audit based on a “possible” violation of a federal statute.
In other words, a Bush-appointed judge said the Trump Justice Department was not just wrong. It was not even close to right.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, who twice rejected the Justice Department’s demands, said the ruling affirmed that he “fulfilled that commitment by upholding New Hampshire law and safeguarding your private information from disclosure.”
This Is Happening Across the Country
New Hampshire is not a one-off. This is a coordinated national campaign.
The dismissal in New Hampshire brings to 10 the number of states where the Justice Department has lost similar cases. Courts have also rejected the administration’s attempts in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. In Georgia, a judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit because it had been filed in the wrong city, prompting the government to refile elsewhere.
Ten states. Ten losses. The administration keeps filing.
Who Is Playing Along
Not every state has said no.
At least 13 states have either provided or promised to provide their voter registration lists to the department: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
Every single one of those states is controlled by Republicans. Every single state that has fought back and won in court has been a state with officials willing to push back on the administration.
This is not a legal dispute about election administration. This is a map of which Republican officials are willing to hand Washington the personal data of their own voters and which ones are not.
What the DNC Said
The Democratic National Committee filed a brief in support of New Hampshire’s effort to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that “a Department of Justice that cannot be forthright with state officials cannot be trusted” with the personal information of every registered voter in the state, including nearly 270,000 registered Democrats.
That argument landed. The judge agreed.
Why This Matters
The Trump administration now has direct access to the personal data of every registered voter in 13 states, including their home addresses and partial Social Security numbers. It is trying to get the same data from 30 more.
There is no clear legal authority for this. Courts have said so ten times. There is no stated plan for what happens to the data once collected. There is no independent oversight of how it would be used. The same administration that has weaponized the Justice Department against political enemies, sued sitting senators and opened investigations into governors and their wives now wants a national database of voter information that it can access without restriction.
That is not voter roll maintenance. That is a surveillance operation.
The Bottom Line
Trump’s Justice Department has now lost in court ten times trying to collect the personal data of American voters. A Bush-appointed judge said their legal theory does not hold up. The Secretary of State of New Hampshire, a Republican, said no twice and won.
The administration is not stopping. It has active lawsuits in 30 states and the District of Columbia. It already has the data from 13 red states that handed it over without a fight.
Courts are the last line of defense here. So far, they are holding.
There is no limit to the perfidy of the Trumpy administration. Sneaky and up to no good.