Trump’s Justice Department says it sued two states for not turning over voter data
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Maine’s Department of the Secretary of State has received no notification of the lawsuit, and the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office also said that it hasn’t seen a court filing.
This story was originally published by the Maine Morning Star.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it sued Maine and Oregon for declining to turn over personal voter information.
“Maine has some of the best elections in the nation,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a statement. “It is absurd that the Department of Justice is targeting our state when Republican and Democratic secretaries all across the country are fighting back against this federal abuse of power just like we are.”
Maine’s Department of the Secretary of State has received no notification of the lawsuit, as of late Tuesday. The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office also told Maine Morning Star’s partner outlet the Oregon Capital Chronicle that it hasn’t seen a court filing. No documents have yet shown up on the court record database PACER.
But in a press release, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division said that it sued the two states and their respective secretaries of state for not providing information about voter list maintenance procedures and electronic copies of statewide voter registration lists.
Bellows, a Democrat, has twice rejected the Trump administration’s requests for sensitive voter data, first on Aug. 8 and most recently on Sept. 8.
The DOJ sent its first sweeping request for voter data on July 24, which asked for the statewide voter registration list, names of officials who handle the list’s maintenance, the number of ineligible voters the state identified due to noncitizenship and other information from November 2022 through the receipt of the letter. Earlier, on July 10, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys sent an email requesting a phone call with Bellows to discuss a “potential information-sharing agreement.”
The second request from the DOJ, sent Aug. 18, again asked for all fields of Maine’s full voter registration list and added a request for voter registration applications from a 19-month period, from December 1, 2023 to July 1, 2025.
According to the DOJ, the lawsuit against Maine alleges the state and Bellows violated the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 by refusing to provide “data regarding the removal of ineligible individuals and to produce an unredacted, computerized state voter registration list.”
In Bellows’ responses to the DOJ, she has questioned the federal agency’s intentions and maintained that the requests seek more information than required by federal law.
She has also said the data demands appear to violate federal privacy laws, specifically the Privacy Act of 1974 and the e-Government Act of 2004, given that the department hasn’t shared how voters’ personal information will be stored, accessed and retained within government systems. She said “complying would put the privacy and data security of Mainers at risk.”
Last week, the Trump administration confirmed that the Department of Justice is sharing state voter roll information with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizens.
Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.