A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking Georgia’s complete voter rolls, marking the department’s 26th court defeat in its nationwide campaign to obtain sensitive voter information.
U.S. District Judge Victoria Marie Calvert, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ruled that federal law did not override Georgia’s voter privacy protections. The lawsuit against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, sought voters’ full birthdates, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers.
The department argued that Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 entitled it to the unredacted records. Calvert concluded that Georgia could meet its federal obligations while withholding information protected under state law.
“Based on the text of the CRA … there is no explicit manifestation of Congress’s intent to preempt states’ voter privacy laws,” Calvert wrote in her 23-page ruling.
Raffensperger, a Republican who had provided the public version of the voter list with less information requested by the DOJ, welcomed the decision.
“I will always protect the sensitive personal information of Georgians, in accordance with the law and the Constitution,” he said in a statement. “I will not give in and break the law for anyone. Period.”
The campaign to obtain states’ voter records began last year. The DOJ has argued it needs the information to enforce federal voter roll maintenance requirements.
Despite repeated district court losses, a divided federal appeals court has offered some glimmers of optimism for the department amid the sea of defeats.
In United States v. Benson, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 on June 24 against the DOJ’s demand for Michigan’s statewide voter file. The majority distinguished the state-created database from individual records officials received and found that DOJ’s demand letters failed to state both the basis and purpose required by law.
U.S. Circuit Judge John Nalbandian dissented, arguing that the underlying records satisfied the statute and the DOJ’s letters adequately explained its request.
The full 6th Circuit ultimately declined the DOJ’s request to rehear the case on Aug. 14. However, an appointee from President Donald Trump’s first term, U.S. Circuit Judge Amul Thapar, dissented from the pack and drew support from four colleagues: Richard Griffin, John Bush, Nalbandian, and Whitney Hermandorfer. Griffin separately argued that the law covered records created by election officials.
U.S. Circuit Judge Eric Murphy, who supported denying rehearing, also identified a possible path forward, suggesting the DOJ could expressly request the individual voter records used to create the statewide list. His concurrence read the panel’s decision as narrower than a categorical rejection of federal access.
Those opinions suggest the DOJ’s arguments remain viable on appeal. But disagreement within one court does not establish a split between appeals courts. Without conflicting appellate decisions, the DOJ would lack a traditional ground for Supreme Court review, though the justices can also hear sufficiently important unresolved federal questions.
While the DOJ has had little success in its voter roll lawsuits, the administration secured a procedural victory in May in its election accountability efforts involving Fulton County’s 2020 election records, which FBI agents seized during a Jan. 28 search.
On May 6, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, a Trump appointee, rejected county officials’ request to force the materials’ return. Although he criticized aspects of the warrant affidavit, he found that the county had not established the callous disregard for its rights needed to justify judicial intervention.
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In its search warrant affidavit, the FBI said it sought the records to determine whether alleged irregularities — including missing ballot images, repeated scanning of ballots, and discrepancies in vote tallies — resulted from intentional acts violating federal law.
The bureau has not offered any updates about whether its seizure of those materials has aided any effort to expose possible election interference or irregularities from the 2020 election, which Trump lost in Georgia to former President Joe Biden by around 11,000 votes.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
