DOJ Sued 30 States for Voter Data

Five federal judges have thrown out the cases. The DOJ is appealing three of them, and already sharing what it collected with DHS.

State of Surveillance Editorial Team

Rows of sealed ballot boxes stacked in a warehouse
Photo via Unsplash

TL;DR: Since May 2025, the Department of Justice has filed federal lawsuits against 30 states and Washington, D.C., demanding sensitive voter data: driver’s license numbers, partial Social Security numbers, dates of birth, full addresses. Five federal judges have dismissed the cases, calling the demands baseless. The DOJ is appealing three of the dismissals. Oklahoma is the only state that settled. And the DOJ admitted in court that it plans to share everything it collects with DHS for citizenship checks through the SAVE database, the same system that’s wrong 81% of the time. The ACLU and Common Cause have intervened in 14 states. This is a fight over whether the federal government gets to build a voter surveillance database, and right now, the courts are the last line of defense.

What the DOJ Is Demanding

Starting in May 2025, the Department of Justice sent letters to every state demanding “complete statewide voter registration lists.” Not the publicly available version. The full files [1].

The data they want:

  • Full names and addresses
  • Dates of birth
  • Driver’s license numbers
  • Last four digits of Social Security numbers (some states store the full nine)

Several states offered to hand over the publicly available portions of their voter rolls: names, addresses, party registration. The DOJ said no. It wanted the sensitive identifiers too. When states refused, the lawsuits started [2].

The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which gives the attorney general the right to inspect voter records. But here’s the catch: that law was written to stop Southern states from suppressing Black voters. It requires the attorney general to explain why they need the records and cite a specific factual concern. The DOJ didn’t do that. In most cases, the demand letter didn’t even mention the Civil Rights Act [3].

The Scorecard: 30 Lawsuits, 5 Defeats

Here’s where things stand as of April 13, 2026:

States sued (30 + D.C.): Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, plus the District of Columbia [1].

Cases dismissed by judges (5):

  • California (January 15, 2026): Court found DOJ demands “violated federal privacy laws”
  • Georgia (January 23, 2026): Dismissed for improper venue; DOJ refiled in a different court
  • Oregon (February 5, 2026): Claims dismissed after enforcement threats were challenged
  • Michigan (February 10, 2026): All DOJ claims dismissed
  • Massachusetts (April 9, 2026): Judge Sorokin ruled DOJ failed to state any factual basis for its demand [3]

Cases appealed (3): California, Oregon, and Michigan. The Ninth Circuit has oral arguments scheduled for May 19 [4].

Settled (1): Oklahoma agreed to hand over its voter data in March 2026 [1].

Complied voluntarily (12 states): Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming [5].

Still fighting (25+ cases): Hearings scheduled through June 2026.

What the Judges Actually Said

The Massachusetts ruling is the most recent, and the most blunt.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston wrote: “Put simply, the statute requires a statement of why the Attorney General demands production of the requested records. That statement has to be factual, ‘not just a conceivable or possible basis.’” [3]

The DOJ’s demand letter to Massachusetts didn’t mention the Civil Rights Act. Didn’t cite any concern about how Massachusetts runs its elections. Didn’t provide a single fact. Just: give us everything.

Five judges in four circuits have now reached the same conclusion: the DOJ can’t just demand voter data without saying why. That’s not how the law works.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the effort a threat to “voter privacy and election security” and part of the administration’s “cruel and harmful agenda” [3].

Where the Data Goes: The DHS Pipeline

On March 27, NPR broke the story that changed everything: the DOJ admitted in court that it plans to share voter data with the Department of Homeland Security [6].

The pipeline works like this:

  1. DOJ collects voter registration data from states (via lawsuits, settlements, or voluntary compliance)
  2. DOJ transmits the data to DHS
  3. DHS runs voter records through the SAVE database to check citizenship status
  4. Mismatches get flagged for investigation, or removal from voter rolls

This is the same SAVE system that flagged 81% of Missouri voters as noncitizens incorrectly. The same one that DOGE “optimized” to enable bulk searches. The same one connected to the March 31 executive order directing the Postal Service to block mail ballots for anyone not in the database.

The 12 states that handed over data voluntarily already fed their voter rolls into this machine. Oklahoma’s settlement added another. If the DOJ wins its appeals, the floodgates open.

Who’s Fighting Back

The ACLU and Common Cause didn’t wait for the courts to catch up. They went on offense [7].

Common Cause filed a direct lawsuit in Nebraska to block the state from sharing data with the DOJ. Result: Nebraska’s Secretary of State confirmed no voter information would be released while the case is pending [7].

ACLU and Common Cause intervened in 14 states: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington D.C., West Virginia, and Wisconsin. They filed motions to join the cases as defendants, bringing their own lawyers and arguments to states that were already fighting [7].

Their argument is straightforward: the DOJ’s real purpose isn’t election integrity. It’s building a national voter surveillance database. The data could enable “large-scale voter purges based on faulty matching techniques,” increase vulnerability to hacking, and violate the National Voter Registration Act, which assigns voter roll maintenance to states, not the federal government [7].

Separately, the ACLU filed Bower v. Social Security Administration on behalf of two Lawfare journalists, demanding FOIA records on what changes DOGE made to SAVE and how voter data is being shared. The agencies haven’t complied [8].

The Surveillance Architecture

Zoom out and look at what’s being assembled:

  • The DOJ demands voter rolls from 30 states, including SSNs and driver’s license numbers
  • DOGE expanded SAVE to accept bulk queries and added full Social Security numbers
  • An executive order directs DHS to compile “State Citizenship Lists” from the combined data
  • ICE gets access to voter records cross-referenced with immigration databases
  • The Postal Service is ordered to block mail ballots for anyone not on the federal list
  • The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division privacy officer resigned in April over the voter data collection
  • DHS shuttered its own civil rights oversight office

Each piece looks like a separate policy. Together, they form a single system: a centralized voter database linked to immigration enforcement, built on data the government obtained through litigation and intimidation, running on a citizenship verification system that gets it wrong four out of five times, with no oversight office left to catch the errors.

Justin Levitt, a Loyola Marymount election law professor, told OPB that each state voter roll the DOJ collected represents “a criminal violation” [9]. John Davisson of the Electronic Privacy Information Center said the DOJ “has no legal authority to maintain a massive database of state voter records” [9].

What You Can Do

  • Check your registration now: Visit vote.org and your state’s election website. If your state is one of the 12 that already shared data, verify your status well before any election
  • Find out if your state is fighting: The Brennan Center’s tracker shows every state’s status in real time
  • Contact your attorney general: If your state hasn’t publicly committed to fighting the DOJ lawsuit, ask why not
  • Keep your citizenship documents accessible: If you’re a naturalized citizen or born before 1978 (when SAVE records are weakest), keep your passport or birth certificate where you can find it
  • Support the legal fight: The ACLU’s Bower v. SSA case and Common Cause’s multi-state interventions are the frontline

References

  1. State Democracy Research Initiative: Tracker: DOJ Lawsuits Seeking States’ Sensitive Voter Data (2026)
  2. Brennan Center for Justice: Tracker of Justice Department Requests for Voter Information (2026)
  3. WBUR: A federal judge dismisses DOJ lawsuit seeking Massachusetts voter data (April 10, 2026)
  4. Boston.com: A federal judge dismisses another DOJ lawsuit seeking voter data (April 9, 2026)
  5. Salon: States are resisting the Trump admin’s voter data power grab (April 3, 2026)
  6. NPR: DOJ plans to share states’ sensitive voter data with DHS (March 27, 2026)
  7. ACLU: ACLU, Common Cause Take on Trump Administration in Court to Protect Voters’ Data (2026)
  8. ACLU: ACLU, Journalists File Lawsuit to Assess Federal Government’s Use of Data to Target Voters (2025)
  9. OPB: As DOJ prepares to share state voter data with DHS, a key privacy officer resigns (April 3, 2026)

Published: April 13, 2026