A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration cannot obtain Arizona’s voter registration list as the administration seeks to ensure election integrity across the nation.
Judge Susan Brnovich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on Tuesday said that the state’s voter registration list is not subject to requests from the U.S. Attorney General.
Brnovich, a Trump appointed-judge, dismissed the case with prejudice because an amended complaint would be “legally futile.”
The dismissal follows after after judges have ruled against the Justice Department’s attempted to obtain at least 30 states and the District of Columbia’s constituents date of birth, address, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers.
The Trump administration seeks the data to ensure states are complying with federal election laws and to check the citizenship status of individuals on the voter rolls.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections just identified 34,000 dead people on the state’s voter rolls after a comparison with federal data. The North Carolina election board noted that the identification of dead people on the rolls does not mean that illegal votes were cast in the state.
“While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated,” Sam Hayes, the executive director of the State Board of Elections, said.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said in a statement, “This moment is a win for voter privacy. I will never comply with illegal requests that put Arizona voters in harms way.”
NBC News reported:
At least 13 states have either provided or promised to provide their detailed voter registration lists to the department, according to the Brennan Center and Associated Press reporting: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.
Federal officials say they need the voter data to ensure that states are complying with federal election laws related to maintaining voter registration lists. In the Rhode Island case, a Justice Department attorney acknowledged that the department was seeking unredacted voter roll information so it could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status.
Democrats and some Republican officials have objected to the requests, believing that providing such information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
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