The Standing

A daily, non-partisan record of US democratic norms — and the events that erode them.

    DOJ sues five more states for full voter rolls, bringing nationwide campaign to 29 states

    On February 26, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced federal lawsuits against Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey for failing to produce their full statewide voter registration lists, bringing the Department's nationwide total to 29 states and the District of Columbia. DOJ asserted authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel production, inspection, and analysis of complete voter rolls — data that can include names, addresses, dates of birth, and partial Social Security or driver's license numbers — to cross-check for "improper registrations." The filings came after federal courts had dismissed several earlier DOJ voter-roll suits.

    Part of: DOJ Campaign to Collect State Voter Rolls (2026)

    Jurisdiction
    federal
    Location
    Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey

    Abuses documented

    Actors

    • Pamela Bondi
    • Harmeet K. Dhillon
    • U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division

    On February 26, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced that it had filed federal lawsuits against five states — Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey — for failing to produce their full statewide voter registration lists upon request. The Department said the filings brought its nationwide total to 29 states plus the District of Columbia. Attorney General Pamela Bondi framed the suits as election-integrity enforcement, saying "accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve," while Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said state officials were "choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work" and that the Department "will not be deterred, regardless of party affiliation."

    According to the lawsuits, the Attorney General claims authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to demand the production, inspection, and analysis of complete statewide voter registration lists, which she says can be cross-checked for "improper registrations." The complete files DOJ seeks can include voters' names, addresses, dates of birth, and partial Social Security or driver's license identifiers. Four of the five states sued in this round — Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and West Virginia — are Republican-led, underscoring that the data demand has reached across party lines.

    The February 26 filing is one discrete act in a sustained 2026 campaign to compel states to surrender copies of their centralized voter-registration databases — an assertion of federal control over election administration that the Constitution's Elections Clause (Art. I, Sec. 4) assigns primarily to the states, with Congress empowered to override. By the date of these suits, federal courts had already dismissed several earlier DOJ voter-roll suits, rejecting the Department's theory that the 1960 Civil Rights Act grants near-automatic access to unredacted statewide databases. The same campaign is the subject of The Standing's March 27, 2026 entry on DOJ's admission in United States v. Amore (D.R.I.) that "duplicate and deceased" analysis of obtained data had already begun.

    Why we recorded this

    Under the Constitution's Elections Clause, the states run elections and maintain their own voter rolls, with Congress — not the executive — empowered to set federal rules. Here the Justice Department invoked the 1960 Civil Rights Act to sue five more states at once for refusing to hand over their complete statewide registration databases, pushing a single administration's demand for centralized access to voter data — names, addresses, birthdates, and partial Social Security or license numbers — to 29 states. We record it because concentrating the nation's voter files in federal hands, over state objection and the "duplicate and deceased" framing that precedes roll removals, is the machinery by which voter-roll purges and voter suppression are built, and because federal courts had already rejected the Department's legal theory in earlier suits.

    Sources

    1. Justice Department Sues Five Additional States for Failure to Produce Voter Rolls (Press Release 26-194) — U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs primary accessed June 12, 2026
    2. Trump DOJ expands voter roll crusade, sues five more states — including four red ones — Democracy Docket secondary accessed June 12, 2026
    3. DOJ sues 5 more states in push for sensitive voter roll data — NBC New York secondary accessed June 12, 2026

    See also