Overview
- The 21st district-court loss, which came Thursday, continued a streak this year of judges rejecting DOJ bids to force states to hand over unredacted voter registration files.
- The Justice Department has sued more than two dozen states and has appealed roughly 16 losses while already losing at least one appeal in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Multiple judges wrote that federal voting laws do not require states to provide full voter rolls and described the DOJ's requests as speculative or a 'fishing expedition.'
- The administration is pairing litigation with administrative pressure, including DHS use of the SAVE database, warnings about potential criminal liability from DOJ letters, and threats to condition disaster relief on SAVE checks.
- Independent audits and reporting show noncitizen voting is rare — a Reuters review found 129 prosecutions since 1996 — leaving courts and states to weigh data accuracy, voter privacy laws, and the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters as appeals move forward.