DOJ Voting List Lawsuits Extend to GOP-Led and Trump States

The Trump administration has filed two dozen lawsuits to ensure states are complying with voter list maintenance laws, including against Republican-led states and states Trump won in the 2024 election. 

The Trump administration’s Justice Department has sued 23 states and the District of Columbia, alleging they did not provide voter registration data to ensure compliance with federal law.

The lawsuits included four states with Republican governors–two of which also have a Republican secretary of state running elections, Georgia and New Hampshire. 

Also, in 2024, President Donald Trump won five of the states his Justice Department is now suing: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Georgia contends it provided the necessary voter information to the Justice Department on Dec. 8, but redacted sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers to ensure it did not fall into the wrong hands.

“Georgia is the gold standard in voter list maintenance at the state level,” said the letter to the Justice Department from Charlene McGowan, General Counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State.

McGowan’s letter said that in 2025, Georgia cancelled the registration of 477,883 names who were listed as “inactive” for the past two general elections. 

Georgia ties for fifth place on The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s office deferred comment to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. 

Nevertheless, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Georgia on Dec. 18 to obtain the voter information. 

“Our office has complied with the Department of Justice’s request to the fullest extent of state law,” Michon Lindstrom, a spokesman for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, told The Daily Signal. 

“Hardworking Georgians can rest easy knowing their Social Security numbers and other personal information are being protected from being shared with an outside, unknown party that has no clear limits or supervision,” Lindstrom added. 

The Justice Department has sought to ensure states are complying with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which both require states to update their voter registration lists and ensure they are free of names of dead people or people listed as voters in jurisdictions where they no longer live. 

“Enforcing the nation’s elections laws is a priority in this administration and in the civil rights division,” a Justice Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal. 

“Congress gave the Justice Department authority under the NVRA, HAVA, the Civil Rights Act, and other statutes to ensure that states have proper voter registration procedures and programs to maintain clean voter rolls containing only eligible voters in federal elections,” the DOJ spokesperson continued.

“The recent request by the Civil Rights Division for state voter rolls is pursuant to that statutory authority, and the responsive data is being screened for ineligible voter entries.”

Several other states won by Trump in 2024 rank significantly lower than Georgia on the Heritage Election Integrity Scorecard.

Arizona and Pennsylvania are tied for a ranking of 24, Michigan ranks 31, and Nevada ranks 39. 

Of the two New England states that have Republican governors but didn’t give electoral votes to Trump in 2024, New Hampshire ranks 20 on the score card, while Vermont is tied for 48th place. 

Vermont is a very blue state where Republican Gov. Phil Scott, first elected in 2016, has been a consistent Trump critic and endorsed Trump primary opponents.

Vermont statute makes it illegal to share voter registration data with commercial entities, foreign entities, or the federal government, said Vermont Secretary Sarah Copeland Hanzas, a Democrat first elected in 2022. 

“We don’t believe the DOJ has made the case that we are in violation of election law or voter list maintenance requirements,” Copeland Hanzas told The Daily Signal. “If the lawsuit is to ensure our compliance with the law, they should have asked for access to how we ensure voting access and list maintenance.”

She said Scott stands with her against the Trump administration. 

“The governor does not have a role to play in maintenance of voter registration, but he has stood in support of our legal position,” she said. 

Last month, Scott told reporters: “I’m supportive of the secretary of state and this is down in her bailiwick, so to speak. We’ll see where it goes from here.”

Neither the offices of New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte, nor New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlon, both Republicans, responded to requests for comment for this story. 

Neither the offices of Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, nor Nevada Democrat Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar responded to inquiries for this story. 

The post DOJ Voting List Lawsuits Extend to GOP-Led and Trump States appeared first on The Daily Signal.