{"id":421546,"date":"2025-12-03T09:58:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/421546\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T09:58:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:58:19","slug":"justice-department-sues-six-more-states-to-get-detailed-voter-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/421546\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department sues six more states to get detailed voter data"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON (AP) \u2014 The Justice Department on Tuesday sued six more states in its ongoing campaign<\/a> to obtain detailed voter data and other election information. <\/p>\n

The department announced it was suing Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington over their \u201cfailure\u201d to produce statewide voter registration lists. It has portrayed the litigation as part of an effort to ensure the security of elections, but Democratic officials have raised concerns<\/a> over how the data will be used and whether the department will follow privacy laws in protecting it.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s actions bring to at least 14 the number of states<\/a> the Justice Department has sued in its quest for the voter information.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur federal elections laws ensure every American citizen may vote freely and fairly,\u201d said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the department\u2019s Civil Rights Division. \u201cStates that continue to defy federal voting laws interfere with our mission of ensuring that Americans have accurate voter lists as they go to the polls, that every vote counts equally, and that all voters have confidence in election results.\u201d<\/p>\n

The department has requested the voter data from at least 26 states<\/a>, according to an Associated Press tally. It\u2019s prompted concerns among some election officials because states have the constitutional authority to run elections and federal law protects the sharing of individual data with the government.<\/p>\n

It also signals the transformation<\/a> of the Justice Department\u2019s involvement in elections under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Many requests<\/a> included basic questions about the procedures states use to comply with federal voting laws, such as how they identify and remove duplicate voter registrations or deceased or otherwise ineligible voters. Certain questions were more state-specific and referenced data points or perceived inconsistencies from a recent survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.<\/p>\n

Some states have sent the department redacted versions of their voter lists, which in many cases are also available to the public. But the Justice Department also has requested copies that contain personally identifiable information, including voters\u2019 names, birth dates, addresses and driver\u2019s license numbers or partial Social Security numbers.<\/p>\n

The New Mexico Secretary of State\u2019s office said it already provided the Justice Department with voter data that is publicly available, but said it\u2019s legally prevented from turning over \u201cpersonal private voter information,\u201d office spokesperson Alex Curtas said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Rhode Island Attorney General Attorney Peter Neronha said his office was aware of the lawsuit and called it the \u201clatest example of the weaponization of the Department of Justice to further the Trump administration\u2019s unlawful whims.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand with and will defend the secretary, and win, because lawsuits concerning lawful conduct are largely unsuccessful,\u201d Neronha said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not surprised that this administration is confused about what it means to behave lawfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Justice Department\u2019s actions come alongside Trump\u2019s push to investigate the 2020 election<\/a>, which he lost<\/a> to Democrat Joe Biden, and influence<\/a> the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n

At the same time, voting rights groups have sued the administration, arguing that recent updates to a federal tool for verifying citizenship could result in voters being unlawfully purged from voter lists.<\/p>\n

Last month, 10 Democratic secretaries of state asked the Trump administration to provide more information about its wide-ranging efforts to seek the statewide voter registration lists. They cited concerns that federal agencies have apparently misled them and might be entering the data in a program<\/a> used to verify U.S. citizenship.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (AP) \u2014 The Justice Department on Tuesday sued six more states in its ongoing campaign to obtain…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":421547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[196813,69,90,57,19124,82,336,362,181121,564,8006,11198,50,11199,111157,80,27016,2737,94,61,67,132,68,2742,333,2743,2057,2058,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-421546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-alex-curtas","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-harmeet-dhillon","14":"tag-joe-biden","15":"tag-lawsuits","16":"tag-legal-proceedings","17":"tag-local-news-for-apple","18":"tag-maryland","19":"tag-md-state-wire","20":"tag-new-mexico","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nm-state-wire","23":"tag-peter-neronha","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-privacy","26":"tag-rhode-island","27":"tag-u-s-department-of-justice","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-vermont","33":"tag-voting","34":"tag-vt-state-wire","35":"tag-wa-state-wire","36":"tag-washington","37":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115655049657726308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}