Over the past year, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., to demand their unredacted voter rolls. The vast majority of cases have been thrown out.

Since September 2025, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia to demand their unredacted voter rolls.

The rolls contain confidential information on millions of Americans and have historically been managed by states. Now these lists are a major focus of President Donald Trump’s push to take federal control over elections and prosecute alleged noncitizen voters.

To date, there have been final rulings in 26 of the DOJ lawsuits.

Four cases are yet to be decided, and one state settled.

Of the judges randomly assigned to the 26 cases, eight were Trump appointees, four were appointed by another Republican — George W. Bush — and 14 were appointed by Democrats.

Tactic No. 1

The first seven lawsuits used the same opening, citing Trump’s March 2025 executive order on election integrity to claim the Justice Department needed states’ voter rolls to check that they were following federal election laws.

“The United States’ championing of its claims under the [election laws], in both its briefing and its presentation at the hearing on this matter, can only be described as halfhearted. And for good reason, since neither statute gives the United States the power to compel Maine to produce its current [unredacted voter list].”
Maine federal Judge Lance E. Walker Trump appointee

The judges ruled that there was no legal or factual basis for the government’s demand. They noted that the laws require states to keep accurate, up-to-date computerized voter lists that include confidential information. But the statutes give the federal government limited power to enforce those mandates.

Several judges accused the administration of using the election laws as a pretext to suppress voting.

“The foundation upon which American democracy has been built is the right to vote. … Now it seems the Executive Branch of the United States government wants to abridge the right of many Americans to cast their ballots. … The Court does not take lightly DOJ’s obfuscation of its true motives.”
California federal Judge David O. Carter Bill Clinton appointee

In an extraordinary rebuke (echoed by other courts around the country), the judge hearing the Oregon case wrote that the federal government’s actions undermined the judiciary’s longstanding trust in the Justice Department. He called them “chilling.”

“The presumption of regularity that has been previously extended to Plaintiff that it could be taken at its word — with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes — no longer holds.”
Oregon federal Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai Joe Biden appointee

All seven lawsuits using the first tactic were dismissed.

Tactic No. 2

The next 19 lawsuits used a different strategy.

They made no mention of Trump’s executive order and didn’t depend on federal voting laws. Instead, they cited a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 called Title III, which requires the preservation of state and local election records.

The government lawyers claimed that Title III gave the attorney general “sweeping power” to obtain these records to curb noncitizen voting. In reality, the law allowed the federal government to access such records to protect the right to vote, for example, by enabling investigations into practices that disenfranchised Black voters in the South.

Judges rejected the government’s arguments, ruling that Title III applies only to voter registration documents, not records that states generate themselves, like voter rolls. They noted the government had also failed to give an explanation of why it needed the records, as the statute requires.

“Clearly, this demand is devoid of any factual basis.”
West Virginia federal Judge Thomas E. Johnston George W. Bush appointee

Several judges marveled at the audacity of the administration’s attempt to use an anti-discrimination law to keep people from voting and condemned the administration’s logic.

“Title III was the Department of Justice’s answer to two years of resistance and obstruction by state election officials who destroyed, failed to retain, or simply refused to disclose the voting records … that would prove that black voters were victims of disparate treatment and had been unlawfully excluded from the rolls based on nothing more than their race.”
D.C. federal Judge Randolph D. Moss Obama appointee

Judges also noted that there was a conflict between the DOJ’s claim to be enforcing election laws, which require voter lists to be continuously updated, and Title III, which bans any alteration of voter records.

“The United States’s proposed interpretation of the CRA would therefore criminalize the same conduct that the [voting laws] require. This Court will not read [Title III] to produce such an absurd result.”
Maryland Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher Trump appointee

The administration’s interpretation of Title III, wrote Bissoon, the Pennsylvania judge, “does violence” to the law’s meaning.

To date, judges have dismissed 19 DOJ complaints that relied on the Civil Rights Act claim.

In written opinions, every one of the 26 judges has rejected the Justice Department’s arguments and thrown out its lawsuits. Four cases are still ongoing.

The Trump administration has appealed most of its losses to federal appeals courts and has said it will consider taking its fight to the Supreme Court.

A Justice Department spokesperson issued a statement in response to ProPublica’s questions: “Our attorneys are skilled, principled advocates who argue every case honestly and in good faith. Disagreement with the government’s position is not evidence of bad faith. We look forward to making our case on appeal.”

The only appeal decided so far backed the district judge who threw out the Michigan case.

“Back then, the government used this power to ensure that everyone who had the right to vote could freely exercise that right. But today, the government invokes Title III for an inverse purpose — to ensure that some people have not voted.”
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion

On Oct. 9, a U.S. district judge ruled that the Justice Department’s national effort to acquire and share state voter rolls was an illegal abuse of its authority. A Justice Department spokesperson said the department is “reviewing the ruling.”

Images of presidents were obtained from the Library of Congress.