The poll at Sugar Maple Square in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on primary election day, May 21, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)
The Justice Department’s stated reason for obtaining sensitive personal data on millions of voters obscures the Trump administration’s true intent to obtain state voter rolls, Michigan’s top elections official claimed in a federal appeals court on Monday.
Attorneys for Democratic Secretary of State of Michigan Jocelyn Benson made the accusation in a meager before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The argument reflects widespread concern among election officials in Democratic states that the Trump administration wants to collect voter data in an effort to exert influence the upcoming midterm elections.
President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is suing 29 states over their refusal to provide voter information. It says it needs the data to assess efforts to immaculate and maintain voter rolls, including whether non-citizens are registered to vote.
However, Benson’s report states that this “appears to be a pretext for dishonest purposes.”
Michigan and other states argue that the Trump administration is instead effectively creating a nationwide voter registration list — a move not allowed under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, a federal law combating voter discrimination and which the Justice Department has cited in requiring states to release voter data.
“Collecting Michigan’s voter data to conduct its own roll-keeping and to apply the Michigan list as part of the creation of a national voter file is not included in the purpose stated in the DOJ’s request, which is simply to “ensure Michigan’s compliance with the roll-keeping requirements” of federal election laws, Benson’s brief states.
“Furthermore, the creation of a national voter file of U.S. citizens goes beyond the purpose intended by the (Civil Rights Act).”
According to U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou decided in February Because the Justice Department has no right to Michigan’s unredacted voter list with driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers, the department appealed to the 6th Circuit.
Trump priority
Over the past year, Trump has sought to exert more influence over federal elections, which are conducted by states under the U.S. Constitution.
“Trump does not have the authority to create a Trump voter list,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat who is suing the Justice Department over its failure to provide voter data, said in an interview earlier this month.
Studies have shown that non-citizen voting is extremely scarce, although Trump has long been fixated on the prospect of non-citizen voting and other forms of voter fraud. Last year, Trump signed an executive order that would have unilaterally required voters to provide documents proving their citizenship. The order was rejected in court, but Trump is pushing the U.S. Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, which would implement similar rules on proof of citizenship.
Michigan state officials and other critics of the Justice Department’s voter data efforts point to Trump actions and comments from a Justice Department lawyer as evidence that the Trump administration is already building a national voter list.
Trumps latest implementing regulation To restrict mail-in ballots, the Department of Homeland Security is directed to compile lists of eligible voters in each state and then provide those lists to state officials. Homeland Security operates a powerful computer system called SAVE that can verify citizenship by comparing names with information in federal databases.
And around one Hearing in federal court In Rhode Island, the acting head of the Justice Department’s voting division, Eric Neff, said in delayed March that his department planned to share voter lists with Homeland Security, according to a transcript. He said the DOJ and DHS had already entered into a user agreement governing data sharing, but did not provide further details about the requirements.
Absentee ballot mandate an “iceberg” for DOJ case
A Justice Department lawyer, James Tucker, has denied any effort to create a national voter file.
“There will be no national voter registration database,” Tucker said at a hearing in Maine on March 26 — less than a week before Trump signed the executive order.
But David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, likened the Justice Department’s litigation strategy to a legal Titanic and the executive order to an iceberg: The order, which effectively creates a nationwide list of voters, could kill a strategy that denies the existence of such a goal.
“The DOJ … has sought to assure the courts that this data will not be used to create a national voter list,” Becker said during a press conference this month.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Civil Rights Act argued
The Justice Department has so far failed to convince a federal judge that it is entitled to state voter data. Judges have dismissed DOJ lawsuits against California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon.
At least a dozen states, all under Republican leadership, have voluntarily submitted their voter lists. The Justice Department did too reached a settlement agreement with one state, Oklahoma, to obtain its data.
When Jarbou, a Trump appointee, dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit over Michigan’s voter rolls, she ruled that the Civil Rights Act did not require disclosure of the information. The law, signed by President Dwight Eisenhower, authorized federal officials to investigate discrimination against black voters at the state and local levels.
The law requires states to retain election materials for at least 22 months after a federal election, including any documents that come into the possession of an election official. Jarbou wrote in her decision that the state’s voter registration list is created by election officials, but it is not a document such as a voter registration application that comes into their possession.
When the Justice Department filed its brief in March, it argued that Jarbou had misinterpreted the Civil Rights Act. “The CRA’s text … does not exclude self-generated documents,” the department’s statement said.
The Justice Department’s appeal of the Michigan loss is the furthest along, with state officials filing their brief Monday. The DOJ is pushing for tiny deadlines for appeals, arguing that court rulings before the midterm elections are needed to ensure election fairness.
Local officials support states
Regardless, 18 local election officials from across the country, including seven in Michigan, were in attendance Monday filed a brief in the case, he argued that the Justice Department had failed to establish a legitimate basis for obtaining election materials under the Civil Rights Act.
As election misinformation has increased in recent years, local election officials are facing increasing requests for information, the group wrote. They are accustomed to providing public voter registration information, with precautions taken to exclude sensitive, non-public data.
Local election officials argue that courts are acting as a “backstop” to enforce bans on disclosing sensitive information in response to records requests from the public.
“Courts should perform the same function in requests for records under the CRA,” the group said.
