Montana Free Press revealed Secretary of State Jacobsen told DOJ her office had satisfied its demand for the state's voter file

On February 4, 2026, Montana Free Press reported that emails obtained through a public-records request showed Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen's office had informed the U.S. Department of Justice, on December 2, 2025, that Montana had "fully satisfied" a federal demand for the state's complete voter registration list. That demand, issued by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on August 14, 2025, specified that the list "must contain all fields, including the registrant's full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver's license number or the last four digits of the registrant's social security number." Reporting establishes that Jacobsen's office had provided DOJ a public, redacted voter list at the end of July 2025 and that DOJ escalated to the unredacted-field demand on August 14, but does not establish the exact date the more detailed file was transmitted -- only that it occurred sometime between August 14 and the December 2 confirmation.

DOJ's demand was part of a nationwide campaign, invoking the Civil Rights Act of 1960, that by this point had reached most states and produced dozens of lawsuits against those that refused to comply; federal district courts had by then ruled against DOJ in the great majority of cases to reach judgment, finding the cited statute does not authorize compelling unredacted voter databases. Montana was not sued. State Administration and Veterans' Affairs Interim Committee Chair Sen. Theresa Manzella later told colleagues that Jacobsen "spared Montana from a lawsuit by giving the U.S. Department of Justice most of what it wanted." Jacobsen separately declined, in a December 29, 2025 letter, to sign a DOJ memorandum of understanding that would have bound Montana to alter its voter rolls at federal direction and resubmit them for confirmation.

After Montana Free Press's story published, Jacobsen's office called it "a blatant lie," demanded a retraction, and an attorney for the office asserted that "no 'confidential voter data' was turned over" and "no 'unredacted voter file' was provided" -- without addressing its own December 2 written statement to DOJ that the request had been "fully satisfied," or specifying what it had sent instead. Whether the transmitted file in fact contained Social Security or driver's license fragments remains disputed: Sen. Manzella has said Jacobsen told the committee her office included the last four digits of Social Security numbers but not driver's license numbers, while the Secretary of State's office has told at least one other outlet it shared neither, and legislative staff reviewing the office's own correspondence said it did not appear the office had provided either field. Jacobsen's office has not made her available to answer legislators' questions on the specifics despite repeated requests spanning several months.

Updates

2026-02-10 — Jacobsen's office denied providing confidential or unredacted voter data [2]

Daily Montanan reported that Secretary of State spokesperson Richie Melby said in a written statement that the office "has cooperated with (the) Justice Department and law enforcement requests for publicly available information and has never provided confidential information to anyone." The outlet reported that a December 29, 2025 letter from the office to DOJ described attaching another copy of the state's public voter list along with unspecified "additional information," which Jacobsen's office did not explain when asked.

2026-09-03 — Committee voted 10-1 to subpoena Jacobsen's office over data sent to DOJ [3]

Montana's State Administration and Veterans' Affairs Interim Committee voted 10-1, with support from six Republicans and all four Democrats, to subpoena Jacobsen's office for a copy of the voter list provided to DOJ showing only the categories of information included, after her office repeatedly declined to answer what data it had shared. Legislative staff told the committee it did not appear, based on the office's own correspondence, that driver's license numbers or Social Security digits had been provided, while Committee Chair Manzella maintained Jacobsen had told her the Social Security digits were included. Jacobsen did not attend the meeting; a spokesperson said she was occupied with election-security preparations. The subpoena gives the office 10 days to comply or contest it in court.