Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island on Friday dismissed a Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit seeking detailed voter information from the Rhode Island Secretary of State. She called the suit, which required unredacted voter registration information, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, “a fishing trip.”
The DOJ requested the information from Rhode Island on September 8th. Secretary of State Gregg Amore rejected this on the grounds Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) “allows access to voter data only in connection with an investigation into the violation or denial of constitutional voting rights.” Amore instead provided a copy of the state’s publicly available voter list, without the unredacted Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
The DOJ accused Amore of violating the CRA and filed a motion to compel production. It was argued that the DOJ had the authority to request personal information about voters under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). However, Judge McElroy found that the DOJ’s letter of demand did not contain any facts that would indicate that Rhode Island was violating either law and that the letter did not provide a reason for the demand.
Judge McElroy cited four other recent federal district court decisions on similar DOJ cases against California, Oregon, Michigan and Massachusetts. The DOJ made similar demands on most states last year. At least twelve countries had agreed to the demands, it was said Brennan Centerthat follows the cases.
30 states and Washington, DC were sued by the DOJ for failing to provide information requested by the department Claims Must ensure election security. In the Rhode Island case, however, Justice Department lawyers admitted that they were seeking unredacted voter roll information so that it could be passed on to the Department of Homeland Security to verify citizenship status.
Minister Amore responded to Judge McElroy’s decision in a opinion He said: “Today’s decision confirms our position: The U.S. Department of Justice has no legal right to, or need to, the personal information in our voter files. Maintaining voter rolls is the responsibility of states.”
