DOJ accuses more states of withholding voter information

Federal prosecutors filed lawsuits against six states on Thursday, alleging that officials withheld voting records, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Officials in California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and New Hampshire violated federal statutes by failing to produce their statewide voter registration lists when asked, according to the DOJ.

Federal prosecutors in the Civil Rights Division are tasked with ensuring that states regularly maintain voter registration lists to protect against voter fraud. State voting information is necessary to carry out that task, and states violated both Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and the Help America Vote Act by withholding information from federal authorities, the DOJ alleged.

Clean voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair elections, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. Every state is tasked with ensuring those records are accurate and secure, and those who don’t will see the DOJ in court, she added. Federal attorneys are now prosecuting eight states for not sharing voter information, having filed similar lawsuits against Maine and Oregon last week.

How are states responding? Most state officials pushed back on the federal accusations, claiming that the DOJ sought personally identifiable information on voters that the state is legally bound to protect.

• California State Secretary Shirley N. Weber responded to the lawsuit Thursday night, accusing the DOJ of pushing state officials to share personal, private data on millions of Californians. The state has a legal right to protect sensitive voter information, and prosecutors failed to show sufficient legal authority to grant such intrusive demands, she said. Citizen data is not a political tool, and these lawsuits are just an excuse for partisan objectives, Weber added.

• Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson explained Thursday that she gave prosecutors the public version of Michigan’s voter file but refused to share the unedited version with personally identifiable information. The DOJ wanted information like driver's licenses and social security numbers for over 8 million Michiganders, she said. That is not a normal request, and her office is legally tasked with protecting citizens’ identities, Benson added.

• Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon released a Thursday statement insisting the state’s elections operate fairly and transparently. State officials are legally barred from sharing private voter data without being informed on how it will be securely stored and used, he said. Instead of answering the state’s questions on how the data would be used, the Trump administration opted to sue, Simon said.

• A spokeswoman for the New York Board of Elections told WORLD on Friday that state officials were reviewing the lawsuit, but she declined to comment on pending litigation.

• New Hampshire State Secretary David M. Scanlan’s office told WORLD on Friday that he received the lawsuit but had no additional comments.

• Pennsylvania State Secretary Al Schmidt described the DOJ’s lawsuit as baseless and said he planned to aggressively defend Pennsylvanians’ privacy in court. The DOJ’s demand for private information, like citizens’ social security numbers, is illegal and unprecedented, he told WORLD in a Friday statement.

Dig deeper: Read my report from last week on a similar lawsuit from the DOJ accusing Maine and Oregon of withholding voting records.