Justice Department effort to obtain voter data from California blocked: NPR

The Trump administration on Thursday suffered its first legal setback in its unprecedented effort to consolidate voter data traditionally held by states.

Federal District Judge David O. Carter It was rejected A lawsuit in California sought to give the Justice Department access to that state’s unredacted voter file, which includes sensitive data such as Social Security numbers and driver’s license data. District judge in Oregon He also said He told court Wednesday that he initially planned to do the same there.

California and Oregon are two of 23 states, along with Washington, D.C., that the Justice Department has sued for denying requests for voter data. All states are led by Democrats, or President Trump lost them in the 2020 election.

The Justice Department argued that it needed unfettered access to state voter rolls to determine whether states maintained their voter rolls in accordance with federal law. However, state officials from both major political parties noted that the federal government had not had access to this data before, and expressed concerns about what other purposes the federal government could use the data for.

“The government’s request is unprecedented and unlawful,” Judge Carter wrote. “The Department of Justice’s request for California residents’ sensitive information would have a chilling effect on American citizens such as political minorities and working-class immigrants who may consider not registering to vote or skipping casting a ballot because they are concerned about how their information will be used.”

Carter, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, also wrote that the Justice Department’s suit looked like a “telegram fishing expedition.”

“Even the federal government is not permitted to file a lawsuit first, obtain discovery, and finalize its claims later,” Carter wrote.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Carter’s dismissal.

The United States Constitution is clear that states administer their elections themselves, with almost no input from the executive branch. When the Trump administration made similar requests for this type of election data in Trump’s first term, they were universally rejected. In 2017, one Republican Secretary of State famous He said the Trump administration could “jump into the Gulf of Mexico.”

But things have changed.

At least eight Republican states either voluntarily submitted or said they would submit the full statewide registration list to the administration during his second term, according to the British Daily Mail. tracking By the Brennan Center for Justice.

In many cases, the data was run through a rolling system at the Department of Homeland Security intended to search for noncitizens. NPR was the first news outlet to report on the details of the system, known as SAVE, but after running tens of millions of records through it, no evidence has emerged of the kind of widespread voter fraud that Trump has long talked about.

Carter’s ruling is the first of many lawsuits over voter data across the country During the hearingHe indicated that he expects to appeal his ruling regardless of the outcome, and may reach the Supreme Court.