The Trump administration on Tuesday took action against six blue states that it says have failed to comply with requests to produce their voter rolls.
The Justice Department announced suits against Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington for not producing statewide registration lists. Without these lists, the Justice Department said that they cannot certify that the states are maintaining an accurate count of eligible voters.
“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi. “The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”
The suits come amid a push from Republicans nationwide to crack down on non-citizen voting and maintain clean voter registration lists.
The lawsuits say that the states are not acting in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, which compel states to maintain accurate voter lists. The attorney general is empowered to enforce those laws and has a right to access the lists under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the suits say.
“States that continue to defy federal voting laws interfere with our mission of ensuring that Americans have accurate voter lists as they go to the polls, that every vote counts equally, and that all voters have confidence in election results. At this Department of Justice, we will not stand for this open defiance of federal civil rights laws,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.
The lawsuit against Rhode Island says that on September 16 Rhode Island sent a letter to the Justice Department refusing a September 8 request for voter roll information. The letter said that the states “objects to providing” the requested information, according to the suit. This requested information includes driver license information and the last four digits of Social Security numbers used to register for voting.
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Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha claimed the suit was an example of Trump weaponizing the Justice Department.
“We stand with and will defend the secretary, and win, because lawsuits concerning lawful conduct are largely unsuccessful,” he said. “But I’m not surprised that this administration is confused about what it means to behave lawfully.”
In September, the Justice Department announced suits against Michigan, California, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and New York over the same issue.
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