A federal judge in Arizona has struck down the Justice Department's attempt to access the state's detailed voter registration records, marking another legal defeat in the administration's push to collect sensitive information from dozens of states before the midterm elections.
US District Judge Susan Brnovich, a Trump appointee, ruled Tuesday that Arizona's voter rolls fall outside the scope of documents the Attorney General can request under federal law. The judge dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, noting that any amendment would be legally futile.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes hailed the decision as a victory for voter privacy. He resisted the Justice Department's requests from the start, and when officials announced the lawsuit on social media, he responded with blunt defiance: "In the meantime, pound sand."
The ruling extends a pattern of judicial rejection. At least six federal courts have now sided against the administration, with judges also blocking similar efforts in Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon. In Georgia, a lawsuit was dismissed for being filed in the wrong jurisdiction, prompting the government to refile.
Yet the administration has found willing partners elsewhere. At least 13 states have voluntarily handed over or agreed to provide detailed voter registration information, including Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
The data sought includes dates of birth, home addresses, driver's license numbers and partial social security numbers. The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia for access. Officials cited the National Voter Registration Act when pursuing the Arizona case, framing the request as part of a compliance investigation.
Court documents and reporting from other cases reveal the endgame. When Rhode Island litigated the issue, a Justice Department attorney disclosed that the information would be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status using a system called SAVE, or Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. The data already obtained from other states has reportedly been forwarded to Homeland Security.
The SAVE program uses the last four digits of a social security number to determine immigration status. But experts warn the system is unreliable. An analysis from the Brennan Center found that SAVE relies on outdated or incomplete information, raising the risk of erroneous voter purges that could disenfranchise eligible voters. The system has also incorrectly flagged legal voters as noncitizens.
Voter fraud remains exceedingly rare. Even data screened through SAVE shows minimal violations across tens of millions of voters.
Analysts and election officials question the stated purpose of the effort. David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said in January that the campaign appears designed to amplify false narratives about election integrity rather than address genuine problems. "The federal government does not have the right to collect information on hundreds of millions of American voters unless Congress has authorized it," he said. "This appears to be more focused on preparation for elections that candidates aligned with the president might lose."
The Constitution reserves voter roll management to individual states, a principle reinforced by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires only that states make reasonable efforts to keep ineligible voters off the rolls.
Author James Rodriguez: "The courts are holding the line on voter privacy, but the administration's success in pressuring over a dozen states to fork over sensitive data shows how fragile that protection really is."
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