In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice began sending letters to state governments demanding copies of statewide voter registration lists. The request was unprecedented: It demanded not only publicly available voter data, such as names and addresses, but also sensitive information, including driver’s license and Social Security numbers.

That data is considered highly sensitive because it can be used to commit identity theft, access financial or government records, and facilitate targeted harassment or intimidation, particularly if the data were mishandled or leaked.

Underlying these requests is the Trump administration’s stated goal of rooting out fraudulent and illegal voting. With voter data in its hands, the DOJ seeks to identify ineligible voters and mandate state election officials to remove those voters from the rolls.

States have responded in a variety of ways. Some have fully complied with the requests, some partially complied, and many outright refused to provide any voter information. For the latter states, the Trump administration has taken the fight to court and sued to get the information, claiming that federal law requires the states to hand it over.

The majority of cases are still going through the courts.

I’m an election law scholar who focuses on election administration. This battle over voter data has raised numerous questions about the Trump administration’s motives, the legality of its actions and, more generally, the role of the federal government in election administration.

The DOJ has a tough road ahead in convincing election officials and judges across the country that all of its demands in these cases are constitutionally legitimate.

Federal power grab

States have exclusive authority to govern and administer state and local elections. The federal government, on the other hand, historically has played a much more limited role in election regulation and administration. By constitutional design, Congress may regulate only the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections – in other words, the procedural elements of elections for federal offices.

And even then, states hold concurrent authority to regulate federal elections.

Nevertheless, in his second administration President Donald Trump has sought to expand the federal government’s control over elections. In February 2026 he called on Congress to “nationalize” elections. He has also made an administration priority the passage of the SAVE America Act, a bill that would mandate states to turn away any voter without documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.

Trump’s initiatives apparently stem from conspiratorial allegations that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, resulting in fraudulent and illegal voting that gave Joe Biden the presidency. And they are ultimately what animates the DOJ’s crusade for voter information from the states, with Attorney General Pam Bondi having recently stated that “accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve.”

So far, the DOJ has sent requests to at least 48 states and the District of Columbia demanding their complete voter registration lists – information on every individual registered to vote in the given state.

In doing so, the DOJ has asked the states to sign onto an agreement under which they agree to remove within 45 days any voters that the DOJ flags as ineligible. But by signing this agreement, a state is effectively handing over the administration of its voter rolls to the federal government.

DOJ’s legal arguments

Only 12 states – Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming – have fully complied with the requests, handing over to the DOJ private information such as the driver’s license and Social Security numbers of their registered voters.

Five states, meanwhile, have provided publicly available voter information – name, address and party affiliation – to the DOJ while withholding more sensitive information. The remaining 31 states of the 48 to receive requests, along with the District of Columbia, have refused to give any voter list to the federal agency.

The DOJ has sued 29 states for refusing to hand over voter lists and has also sued the District of Columbia, sparing only Iowa, Alabama and South Carolina. Only one sued state – Oklahoma – has thus far capitulated to the DOJ.

In these lawsuits, the DOJ cites three legal sources that supposedly give the agency the right to request voter information from state officials.

First, the DOJ points to a provision of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 that requires states to “make available for public inspection” all records necessary to ensure the accuracy of their voter registration lists. As critics note, though, this provision does not require states to reveal sensitive voter information. All 50 states are, in fact, currently in compliance with the act’s mandate.

Second, the DOJ invokes the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and its requirement that all states must maintain a computerized, statewide voter registration list. Nevertheless, no provision in that law provides explicit authority to the federal government to request these registration lists from state officials.

Finally, the DOJ has argued that the states have an obligation under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to comply with the agency’s demands. Specifically, Title III of the act permits the U.S. attorney general to request for inspection “all records and papers” kept by state election officials relating to “any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting.”

While perhaps the strongest of the three arguments, that title of the Civil Rights Act goes on to require the attorney general to offer a “statement of the basis and the purpose” of their request.

In the DOJ’s requests to states, Bondi has apparently provided zero justification as to why the states must hand over sensitive voter information to the DOJ. Indeed, any stated purposes appear unrelated to the Civil Rights Act’s aims of combating racial discrimination.

What’s possible

There are further legal questions regarding whether the states could even comply with the DOJ’s proposed 45-day deadline for removing declared ineligible voters.

For example, the National Voter Registration Act forbids states from removing people from the voter rolls in certain instances without first providing notice and waiting two federal election cycles – a timeline well beyond 45 days.

In the 29 targeted states, federal courts have thus far dismissed four lawsuits in California, Georgia, Michigan and Oregon. Oklahoma, as noted above, has settled its case with the DOJ. While the remaining lawsuits have yet to fully play out, the DOJ likely faces less-than-sympathetic judges in these cases.

Even if the DOJ loses in court, though, the federal government may continue attempting to receive states’ voter information through other means.

The SAVE America Act, for instance, currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate, contains a provision that incentivizes states to submit their voter registration lists to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on a quarterly basis or otherwise subject their residents to stringent voter ID laws. Should Congress pass the act, the executive branch would have much clearer federal authority to force voter data from state election officials.

John J. Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.