Justice Department Sues Maine and Oregon Over Voter Data in Escalating Election Battle

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed lawsuits this week against Maine and Oregon, intensifying a clash between the Trump administration and Democratic-led states over access to voter registration data. The lawsuits mark the first legal actions taken after multiple states rejected federal requests for detailed voter information, including partial Social Security numbers.

Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said the lawsuits were necessary because states cannot "pick and choose" which federal laws to follow, reported NPR. "American citizens have a right to feel confident in the integrity of our electoral process," Dhillon said. She argued that refusing to share data hampers federal oversight of election integrity and risks "vote dilution."

The DOJ maintains that it needs raw voter roll data to verify whether states are complying with federal list-maintenance laws, which require officials to keep voter registration files accurate and up-to-date.

Fierce Pushback From States

Officials in Oregon and Maine strongly rejected the demand, framing it as a dangerous overreach. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department. "If the President wants to use the DOJ to go after his political opponents and undermine our elections, I look forward to seeing them in court," Read said in a statement.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows echoed those concerns. "This is not normal," Bellows told NPR, calling the demand "deeply concerning from a constitutional perspective, a privacy perspective and a political perspective, given that they're only targeting Democratic secretaries of state." Bellows, who is also running for governor, warned that the federal government "doesn't have a great track record with keeping sensitive personal information safe."

Election Integrity or Political Targeting?

The lawsuits highlight a growing tension over voter list maintenance, a technical but politically charged issue. State officials note that maintaining perfectly accurate lists is nearly impossible since millions of Americans move, die, or change names every year. Courts have generally allowed states wide discretion, requiring only "reasonable" efforts to keep lists updated.

Conservative election integrity groups, however, have long pushed for stricter list purges and greater federal oversight. Many of those organizations have been criticized for spreading misleading claims about widespread voter fraud, a narrative echoed by Dhillon and others in the DOJ who previously advanced false fraud allegations.

National Pattern Emerging

The DOJ's lawsuits come just days after reports revealed that the administration had already run more than 33 million voter records through a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) citizenship verification tool. Election officials say they have been offered little transparency about how the tool works or how accurate it is.

DHS officials previously assured state leaders that they did not want access to voter lists, but in recent statements confirmed that they are collaborating with DOJ. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to specify whether voter rolls would be checked against the DHS system, saying only that the requests were legal and aimed at screening "ineligible voter entries."