DOJ sues Maine, Oregon for withholding voting records

Federal prosecutors filed lawsuits on Tuesday accusing officials in Maine and Oregon of violating federal voting laws. According to a statement from the Department of Justice, both states refused to provide the necessary data on statewide voter registration lists and policies. States are required to comply with data requests under the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act, the DOJ said, and its Civil Rights Division is tasked with ensuring that states regularly maintain voter registration lists to protect against voter fraud.

The DOJ filings allege that Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read refused to share an unredacted copy of the state’s digital voter registration list and would not share information on how the state maintains its voter registration list. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows similarly refused to share data on the removal of ineligible voters, and would not share an unredacted, digital copy of the state voter roll, the DOJ claimed. However, both states shared the same information requested by the DOJ with a private organization, prosecutors said.

Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement that Americans have a right to be confident in the electoral process, and states can’t cherry-pick the federal laws they comply with.

How are the states responding? In Maine, Secretary of State Bellows released a Wednesday statement defending her state’s electoral security. According to her office, federal officials requested voting data that included personally identifiable information on voters to compile a national voting database. The DOJ gave no explanation on how the data would be used, who could access it, and how it would be stored, the office said.

Oregon State Secretary Read told WORLD in a statement that the federal government was trying to intimidate his office into sharing private voter data. He called the lawsuit a partisan attack that wasn’t about securing elections but flexing political power. He said he intends to defend Oregonians’ right to privacy in court.

Dig deeper: Read Emma Freire’s report in WORLD Magazine examining the conflict between the executive and judicial branches of government.