Justice Department Sues Five More States — Four Led by Republicans — for Their Full Voter Rolls

The Justice Department announced on February 26, 2026 that it had sued Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia and New Jersey for failing to produce statewide voter registration lists. Four of the five are administered by Republican election officials. The department invokes the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which it says gives the Attorney General broad authority to demand the production, inspection and analysis of statewide voter registration lists, and also cites the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. Reporting says the department seeks complete, unredacted databases including names, addresses, birthdates, driver's license numbers and Social Security information. The department said the lists can be cross-checked for improper registrations.

The demand would centralize in the executive branch the individually identifying voter records of entire states, a function the Constitution and federal election statutes leave largely to state administration. Whether the 1960 statute reaches that far is the disputed legal question.

The filings bring the campaign to roughly 30 states and jurisdictions. Federal courts have dismissed three earlier cases, against Michigan, Oregon and California, rejecting the department's theory that the 1960 Act provides near-automatic access to unredacted statewide databases; the department has appealed all three.