A federal judge has dismissed the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Maine seeking access to voter registration data.
The DOJ sued Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in U.S. District Court last fall to compel her to turn over voter registration lists, which would include such information as voters’ Social Security and driver’s license numbers, as well as their party affiliations.
The DOJ says that it has requested such data from almost every state. About a dozen states have voluntarily shared their voter rolls, according to the Brennan Center. Maine and almost 30 other states have refused and faced federal lawsuits, the DOJ reported in February.
In court records and hearings, attorneys for the federal government have said that this information would help them ensure that voter registration laws are being enforced.
Bellows, through the Office of the Maine Attorney General, urged Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing it was government overreach.
In a statement Thursday, Bellows said that Walker’s ruling affirms that “states, not the federal government, are in charge of our elections.”
Both the League of Women Voters of Maine and two Maine voters, John Schneck and Marpheen Chann, intervened in the case to join Bellows in her defense.
League spokesperson Jen Lancaster said the organization felt that the DOJ’s request for voter data was an attempt to “seize” private citizen data.
“The intent behind it was never clearly articulated in court,” Lancaster told a reporter Thursday. “There was no clear reason why they needed to seize the data.”
A spokesperson for the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
During the March hearing, an attorney for the DOJ pushed back on claims that the federal government was seeking to compile a national voter database or use voter data for non-voting related reasons.
In a footnote to his order, Walker wrote that this response was “almost immediately undermined” by an executive order that President Donald Trump issued less than a week later, calling on the Department of Homeland Security to create a “state citizenship list” to verify voter eligibility federally.
“Government officials were not shy about it,” said Zachary Heiden, chief counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. “They wanted to do this for reasons that had nothing to do with civil rights, or voter rights.”
It’s unclear whether the DOJ will appeal Walker’s ruling to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The department has appealed other dismissals in California, Oregon and Michigan. Their circuit courts have not yet issued any rulings, according to an analysis of court records.
