The U.S. Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Thursday for failing to hand over the state\u2019s voter rolls, alleging she is unlawfully preventing federal authorities from ensuring state compliance with federal voting regulations and safeguarding federal elections against fraud.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department also sued Weber\u2019s counterparts in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, who have similarly declined its requests for their states\u2019 voter rolls.<\/p>\n
\u201cClean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,\u201d Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement on the litigation. \u201cEvery state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure \u2014 states that don\u2019t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its lawsuit against Weber, who is the state\u2019s top elections official, the Justice Department argues that it is charged \u2014 including under the National Voter Registration Act \u2014 with ensuring that states have proper protocols for registering voters and maintaining accurate and up-to-date rolls, and therefore is due access to state voter rolls in order to ensure they are so maintained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States has now been forced to bring the instant action to seek legal remedy for Defendants\u2019 refusal to comply with lawful requests pursuant to federal law,\u201d the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n
Weber, in a statement, called the lawsuit \u201ca fishing expedition and pretext for partisan policy objectives,\u201d a \u201cblatant overreach\u201d and \u201can unprecedented intrusion unsupported by law or any previous practice or policy of the U.S. Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to utilize the federal court system to erode the rights of the State of California and its citizens by trying to intimidate California officials into giving up the private and personal information of 23 million California voters,\u201d Weber said.<\/p>\n
She said California law requires that state officials \u201cprotect our voters\u2019 sensitive private information,\u201d and that the Justice Department not only \u201cfailed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands,\u201d but ignored invitations from the state for federal officials to come to Sacramento and view the data in person \u2014 a process Weber said was \u201ccontemplated by federal statutes\u201d and would \u201cprotect California citizens\u2019 private and personal data from misuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Justice Department has demanded a \u201ccurrent electronic copy of California\u2019s computerized statewide voter registration list\u201d; lists of \u201call duplicate registration records in Imperial, Los Angeles, Napa, Nevada, San Bernardino, Siskiyou, and Stanislaus counties\u201d; a \u201clist of all duplicate registrants who were removed from the statewide voter registration list\u201d and the dates of their removals.<\/p>\n
It has also demanded a list of all registrations that have been canceled because voters in the state died; an explanation for a recent decline in the recorded number of \u201cinactive\u201d voters in the state; and a list of \u201call registrations, including date of birth, driver\u2019s license number, and last four digits of Social Security Number, that were cancelled due to non-citizenship of the registrant.\u201d<\/p>\n
The litigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to push its demands around voting policies onto individual states, which are broadly tasked under the Constitution with managing their own elections.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit follows an executive order by Trump in March that purported to radically reshape<\/a> voting rules nationwide, including by requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship and requiring states to disregard mail ballots that are not received by election day.<\/p>\n