Feds Show New Level of Interest in Voter List Data

Feds Show New Level of Interest in Voter List Data

The Justice Department has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C., in an attempt to obtain unredacted voter lists.

The Justice Department has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C., all of which declined to turn over unredacted voter rolls. (Bo Shen/Getty Images)

Since May 2025, the Department of Justice has requested that nearly every state and Washington, D.C., turn over unredacted voter rolls, including personally identifiable information such as partial Social Security numbers.

Because voter list maintenance is a responsibility of the states-apart from some guidance provided by the federal National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act-the department's requests have elicited a variety of responses. Some states, such as Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Washington, have declined to provide any voter data, arguing that existing federal law does not support the department's request and that state privacy laws prohibit such disclosure.

Other states, including Colorado, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia, have addressed DOJ questions and guided the department to publicly available lists. Still other states, such as Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana and Kansas, have provided or stated they will provide complete voter lists with these sensitive data to the DOJ. It's been widely reported that the department has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C., all of which declined to provide sensitive voter information.

As of Feb. 16, federal courts in three states have ruled that the Justice Department is not entitled to the voter data at the heart of the suits. In Oregon, the department's case was dismissed pending written reasoning from the judge, according to CBS News. The California case was dismissed with the judge expressing concern about federal overreach and a lack of information from federal agencies about how they planned to use the data, CBS reported.

In dismissing the department's Michigan case, the judge determined that the National Voter Registration Act did not require the disclosure of sensitive personal information, citing multiple cases where other judges had reached the same conclusion, according to FOX 2 Detroit. The judge also wrote that the department was not entitled to the voter list data under the requirements of the Help America Vote Act because the department "does not allege any violations of HAVA's substantive provisions."

A fourth DOJ lawsuit, in Georgia, was dismissed because it was mistakenly filed in the state's Middle District; it has been refiled in the Northern District.

Election officials from both major parties have expressed concern over providing sensitive state-held voter data to the Justice Department. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) told state legislators that he would not provide an unredacted voter list to the department without a court order, according to Stateline. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon (D) rejected an apparent attempt by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to connect the continued presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in his state to federal requests for unredacted voter lists. The DOJ has sued Minnesota; it has not sued Missouri. At least six states with Republican chief election officials are declining to provide all of the data requested by the department, according to CNN.

For more on these ongoing state-federal interactions, as well as the underlying policy dynamics, see the NCSL resource Federal Requests for Statewide Voter Lists.

Luke Belant is a project manager in NCSL's Elections and Redistricting Program.