A federal judge in California this week struck down the Justice Department’s demand for the state to hand over sensitive voter roll data, ruling that it would trample on residents’ privacy rights and potentially disenfranchise voters.
“The taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left,” said David Carter, a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of California, in a ruling on Thursday.
“The case before the Court is one of these cuts that imperils all Americans. The erosion of privacy and rolling back of voting rights is a decision for open and public debate within the Legislative Branch, not the Executive. The Constitution demands such respect, and the Executive may not unilaterally usurp the authority over elections it seeks to do so here.”
The decision is the first formal court decision of what is expected to be many, after the Justice Department filed nearly two dozen lawsuits around the country ordering states to hand over voter roll data containing sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, addresses and driver’s license numbers.
Another federal judge in Oregon, meanwhile, separately signaled earlier this week he tentatively plans to dismiss the Justice Department’s voter roll lawsuit against the state.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has sent demands to at least 43 states so far asking them to hand over voter roll data, according to a tally kept by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The Civil Rights Division has claimed it needs the data to ensure compliance with two federal laws — the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act — which require states to establish programs for maintaining clean voting lists so people ineligible to vote, such as convicted felons.
But government documents previously reviewed by CBS News show that the Justice Department is actually working with the Department of Homeland Security to hand over the data so that it can be used in pursuit of criminal and immigration investigations.
Justice Department officials have not communicated their plans to share the data with DHS with the states.
In an Aug. 28 virtual meeting with secretaries of state, a former Civil Rights Division official told them the data would only be used to ensure they had clean voter lists and pledged to analyze the information “securely and discreetly,” according to notes on the meeting shared with CBS News by a participant.
Legal experts have said the Justice Department’s demands for voter roll data are unprecedented and raise privacy concerns. The federal Privacy Act requires the government to provide public notice and comment before it collects records on individuals.
The Justice Department has argued it also has a right to access the data under the Civil Rights Act, which requires states to retain voter registration records for up to 22 months after an election.
The law states that the Justice Department can issue a written demand to inspect the records, but it must provide “a statement of the basis and the purpose” for the request.
In his ruling on Thursday, Carter said the Justice Department has not provided an adequate basis for its need to access such sensitive, nonpublic voter roll data.
He also cited prior media reports showing that the true purpose behind the data request is to use it for immigration and criminal enforcement.
“The Court does not take lightly DOJ’s obfuscation of its true motives in the present matter,” Carter wrote. “Congress passed the NVRA, Civil Rights Act, and HAVA to protect voting rights. If the DOJ wants to instead use these statutes for more than their stated purpose, circumventing the authority granted to them by Congress, it cannot do so under the guise of a pretextual investigative purpose.”
Dax Goldstein, the Election Protection Program Director at the States United Democracy Center, hailed the decision from the court on Thursday.
“Today the court sent a clear message: states run elections, not the administration,” Goldstein said in a statement to CBS.
“This decision serves as a vindication of what states have been arguing for months: There is no legal basis for the federal government’s sweeping demands for voters’ most sensitive information.”
