The Trump administration on Thursday was dealt its first legal setback in its unprecedented effort to consolidate voter data traditionally held by states.
Federal district Judge David O. Carter dismissed a lawsuit in California that sought to give the Justice Department access to that state's unredacted voter file, which includes sensitive data like Social Security numbers and driver's license data. A district judge in Oregon also said in court Wednesday that he was tentatively planning to do the same there.
California and Oregon are two of 23 states, along with Washington, D.C., that have been sued by the Department of Justice for rebuffing requests for voter data. All states are led by Democrats, or were lost by President Trump in the 2020 election.
The DOJ has argued that it needs unfettered access to the state voter lists to determine whether states are maintaining their voter lists in accordance with federal law. State officials from both major political parties, however, have noted that the federal government has never had access to this data before, and expressed worries about what else the federal government could use the data for.
"The government's request is unprecedented and illegal," Judge Carter wrote. "The DOJ's request for the sensitive information of Californians stands to have a chilling effect on American citizens like political minority groups and working-class immigrants who may consider not registering to vote or skip casting a ballot because they are worried about how their information will be used."
Carter, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, also wrote that the Justice Department's suit appeared to be a "telltale 'fishing expedition.'"
"Even the federal government is not permitted to sue first, obtain discovery, and finalize its allegations later," Carter wrote.
The Department of Justice did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Carter's dismissal.
The U.S. Constitution is clear that states run their own elections, with almost no input from the executive branch. And when the Trump administration made similar requests for this sort of election data in Trump's first term, it was universally rejected. In 2017, one Republican secretary of state famously said the Trump administration could "go jump in the Gulf of Mexico."
But things have changed.
At least eight Republican states have either voluntarily provided or said they will provide their full statewide registration list to the administration during his second term, according to tracking by the Brennan Center for Justice.
In many cases, the data has been run through a revamped system at the Department of Homeland Security meant to search for noncitizens. NPR was the first news outlet to report on the details of the system, known as SAVE, but after tens of millions of records were run through it, no evidence of the sort of widespread voter fraud Trump has long talked about has come to light.
Carter's ruling is the first to come out of the numerous voter data lawsuits across the country, and during a hearing, he noted that he expected his ruling to be appealed regardless of the outcome, potentially all the way to the Supreme Court.
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