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A federal judge in Oregon on Monday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking access to the state’s unredacted voter rolls, delivering another legal setback to the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to obtain detailed voter data from states across the country.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said during a hearing that he would dismiss the case and issue a written opinion in the coming days. Court records later showed that Oregon’s motion to dismiss was granted.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield welcomed the ruling, saying the federal government failed to meet the legal threshold required to obtain the records.
“The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place,” Rayfield said in an emailed statement. “Oregonians deserve to know that voting laws can’t be used as a backdoor to grab their personal information.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Broader clash over voter data
The ruling comes as the Trump administration presses a sweeping campaign to access state voter data, including information that election officials say is protected by privacy laws. The Justice Department has filed similar lawsuits against at least 23 states and the District of Columbia.
Those efforts have repeatedly faltered in court. Last week, a federal judge in Georgia dismissed a DOJ lawsuit after ruling the government sued in the wrong venue. Earlier this month, a federal judge in California dismissed a similar case, calling the federal government’s request for voter data “unprecedented and illegal.”
The department has argued that access to voter rolls is necessary to ensure states are complying with federal election laws. State officials and election administrators have countered that federal officials lack authority to demand sensitive voter information and have raised concerns the data could be used for purposes unrelated to election administration.
Bondi letter looms over case
Kasubhai scheduled Monday’s hearing after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Saturday, the same day federal immigration agents fatally shot 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The killing sparked widespread protests amid a surge of federal immigration enforcement in the state.
In the letter, Bondi urged Walz to support federal immigration officers and outlined three “simple steps” she said would help “bring back law and order,” including granting the Justice Department access to Minnesota’s voter rolls to “confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.”
Bondi also demanded access to state Medicaid and food assistance records and called for the repeal of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation between local officials and federal immigration authorities.
Kasubhai said he called the hearing to allow attorneys to address how Bondi’s letter factored into the “basis and purpose” of the department’s request for voter data in Oregon.
Limits of federal authority
The Justice Department has sought voter data that includes voters’ names, birth dates, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers — information that many states say cannot legally be shared with the federal government.
In court filings, Oregon officials said providing such data would violate state and federal privacy protections. They offered instead to provide the publicly available version of the state’s voter registration list.
The Justice Department argued it had authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which allows the U.S. attorney general to demand voter records if the request states the basis and purpose. But Kasubhai said the department’s August letter to Oregon failed to meet that standard.
He said his review of the congressional record surrounding the law’s passage showed it was intended to support investigations into discrimination in elections — not broad fishing expeditions for voter data.
“The record is unequivocal,” Kasubhai said, adding that the department’s request did not align with the law’s original purpose.
Growing concern among election officials
The administration’s push has alarmed election officials nationwide, who note that the Constitution gives states — not the executive branch — primary authority over elections, with Congress empowered to regulate them by statute.
Federal law also restricts the sharing of individual voter information with the federal government, protections officials say are critical to maintaining trust in election systems.
Monday’s ruling adds to a growing list of court decisions rebuffing the Trump administration’s attempts to obtain detailed voter data, as judges increasingly question both the legal basis and stated purpose behind the requests.
