Voting
CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION’S
FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH
Since 1957, federal civil rights enforcement has protected the right to vote won through the struggle of Black Americans and other marginalized communities. The Civil Rights Division has enforced federal voting laws to dismantle discriminatory redistricting, protect language-minority and disabled voters, expand voter access, and ensure that eligible voters can cast ballots freely and have them counted.
CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION'S FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH
Voting is the engine of our democracy, with free and fair elections serving as the source of our government’s legitimacy. Voting rights are thus central to democratic order and the rule of law. As the Supreme Court said nearly 140 years ago, the right to vote is “a fundamental political right, because [it is] preservative of all rights.” Having and exercising the right to vote is a core ingredient of democratic inclusion.
Voting Rights Act: Ensuring Equal Access to the Ballot
Since its creation in 1957, the Civil Rights Division has worked to secure voting rights for all Americans. The Division enforces the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), one of our nation’s core civil rights statutes. The VRA was enacted to overcome persistent and often violent resistance to Black citizens’ efforts to register and vote in the southern states. Section 2 of the VRA, which applies nationwide, prohibits voting practices and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language-minority group. Other provisions of the VRA require certain jurisdictions to provide bilingual election materials and assistance to voters with limited English proficiency. And the Americans with Disabilities Act likewise requires that individuals with disabilities be afforded a full and equal opportunity to vote in all elections.
For decades, the Division brought cases under the VRA to challenge redistricting plans and other voting procedures that denied racial and language-minority voters a fair chance to participate in the political process. Most of the Division’s VRA cases challenged discrimination at the local level—in cities, counties, and towns around the country. Thanks in part to the VRA, the electoral process truly is more open and inclusive today than it was in 1965. But despite significant improvements, discriminatory voting practices persist. In just the last 25 years, the Division brought VRA cases in nearly half the states, striking down practices that primarily impeded voters of color from having an equal opportunity to participate in the political life of their communities.
Making Voter Registration Simple, Accessible, and Fair
The Civil Rights Division also enforces the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), sometimes called the Motor Voter Act, which Congress enacted in 1993 to expand voter registration and participation in federal elections. The law requires states to offer voter registration through the mail, at driver’s license offices, and when people apply for public assistance or disability services. The NVRA also creates requirements for how states maintain voter registration lists for federal elections, including limitations on how and when names may be removed from the voter rolls. These provisions promote accurate voter registration lists and guard against the incorrect removal of eligible voters.
The Division also enforces some parts of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), including provisions requiring poll workers to provide a provisional ballot when a voter declares they are duly registered but their name does not appear in the poll book. Other provisions of HAVA require jurisdictions to provide at least one accessible voting machine at each polling place to permit voters with disabilities to vote independently.
Protecting the Voting Rights of Military and Overseas Citizens
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) requires states to allow members of the military, their family members, and U.S. citizens residing overseas to register and vote absentee in elections for federal offices. When requested by a UOCAVA voter, states must send the voter an absentee ballot early enough for the voter to receive it, complete it, and send it back. When states have failed to make sure that ballots are sent to qualified UOCAVA-protected voters in a timely manner, the Civil Rights Division has successfully obtained court orders and consent decrees to ensure that qualified service members and overseas voters were able to cast their ballots and know that they were counted.
WHAT’S CHANGED SINCE
JANUARY 20, 2025?
Civil Rights Division political leadership has redirected voting enforcement from protecting the right to vote toward undermining it. Dismissing Voting Rights Act (VRA) cases, taking positions to weaken VRA protections, pressuring states to dismantle equal-opportunity districts, and demanding mass voter registration data have stripped back hard-won protections and threaten confidence in free and fair elections.
WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE JANUARY 20, 2025?
The Civil Rights Division’s work on voting rights has changed dramatically under the current Trump administration.
Racial Discrimination Enforcement Has Been Gutted
Enforcement of statutes designed to eradicate racial discrimination in voting—traditionally the heart of the Division’s voting work—has been the hardest hit. In early 2025, the Division moved to dismiss most of its ongoing lawsuits, including cases enforcing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It has pressured states to dismantle voting districts that provide voters of color an equal opportunity to elect their candidates of choice. After decades of defending Section 2’s constitutionality, the Division urged the Supreme Court to adopt a heightened standard designed to make Section 2 challenges significantly harder to sustain—and the Court’s decision followed that path.
The Division has Reoriented its Mission around Alleged Voter Fraud
The Division says it is aggressively focused on preventing voter fraud and coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to identify alleged non-citizens on the voter rolls. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon issued a new mission statement to guide the Division’s voting rights work that centers politically-charged issues not grounded in the statutes the Division enforces, such as voting fraud, and makes no reference to racial discrimination in voting. The Division’s political leadership forced out the career chief of the Voting Section, replaced that leadership with a political appointee serving as acting chief, and later installed another acting chief who reportedly lacked federal election law experience.
The Division Has Sought Sweeping New Control Over Local Election Data
The Division has also pursued an alarming expansion of federal authority over local elections by demanding complete voter registration lists from all states and reportedly sharing the data it receives with DHS, including highly confidential information such as driver’s license and Social Security numbers. The Division has filed over 30 lawsuits against states and the District of Columbia to compel disclosure of the information. This approach is notable because voter fraud, particularly non-citizen voting, is exceedingly rare and would ordinarily be handled by criminal prosecutors outside of the Division.
Tracking the Changes
Voting Cases Shut Down Since January 20, 2025
Red Line does not include every Civil Rights Division case. Learn what Red Line tracks.
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Voting Cases Pursued Since January 20, 2025
Red Line does not include every Civil Rights Division case. Learn what Red Line tracks.
United States v. Scanlan (New Hampshire)
25-cv-00371 (D.N.H.)
On September 25, 2025, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division announced that it sued New Hampshire under the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel disclosure of the State’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license or last four digits of Social Security numbers). According to the lawsuit, New Hampshire refused to provide the requested information.
On February 17, 2026, sixteen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief, opposing DOJ’s attempt to compel production of sensitive voter records. The attorneys, including trial attorneys, Deputy Chiefs, and Chiefs, worked in voting enforcement for the Civil Rights Division in careers collectively spanning from 1968 to 2025. The brief catalogs DOJ’s longstanding interpretation of the relevant statutes and its past practice of seeking voting information, concluding that the Division’s “sweeping request” here is “without adequate investigative rationale” and represents a “radical departure” from the Division’s “targeted, justified” requests in the past.
On June 29, 2026, the court dismissed the case in its entirety. Following the reasoning first articulated in United States v. Benson, the court held that the statewide voter registration list is not a “record or paper” within the meaning of Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 because the list is created by the state, not something that “comes into” election officials’ possession.
The court also concluded that DOJ’s demand was facially deficient because the demand “does not identify any factual anomalies in New Hampshire’s voter registration data, nor does it point to any complaint or pattern suggesting noncompliance with [Help America Vote Act] or [Civil Rights Act].”
Finally, the court concluded that even if DOJ had not abandoned its Help America Vote Act claim, the claim would still fail: “[t]he mere contention that New Hampshire’s duplicate identification rates are lower than the national average, without more, cannot support a lawsuit allowing the Attorney General unrestricted access to New Hampshire’s [statewide voter registration list] to conduct a line-by-line audit to assess a ‘possible’ violation of a federal statute.”
This lawsuit arose from DOJ’s unprecedented decision to seek voter registration data from every state, an expansive exercise of federal authority that the Division ties to “election integrity” and the President’s March 25, 2025, Executive Order.
Watson v. Republican National Committee
24-cv-00025, (S.D. Miss.), No. 24-60395 (5th Cir.), 24-1260 (U.S. Supreme Court)
In February 2026, DOJ filed a brief in support of the Republican party’s challenge to Mississippi’s bipartisan voting law that permits the counting of mail-in absentee ballots, so long as those ballots are postmarked by election day and received within 5 business days after election day. The brief argued that the Mississippi law violated federal law and that ballots must be received by election day.
On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court rejected DOJ’s arguments and upheld the Mississippi law, holding “[t]he election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose.”
In response to this ruling Jesus Osete, the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division posted on X that he was disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision but was “nevertheless glad” that the Division’s “pre-Watson efforts led states like Ohio to amend their laws to align with the original meaning of Election Day.”
According to the Brennan Center, “the District of Columbia, and three U.S. territories that have ‘grace period’ laws allowing at least some voters’ mail ballots to be counted when they are sent by Election Day and arrive afterward.”
United States v. Pennsylvania
25-cv-01481 (W.D. Pa.)
On September 25, 2025, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division announced that it sued Pennsylvania under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel disclosure of the State’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license or last four digits of Social Security numbers). According to the lawsuit, Pennsylvania refused to provide the requested information.
On June 27, 2026, the court dismissed the case in its entirety.
The opinion opened with a discussion of federalism, contrasting the Trump administration’s position with traditional conservative principles favoring limited federal power. After quoting Ronald Reagan and the Heritage Foundation on the importance of restraining federal power, the court observed: “That was then, this is now.” The court explained that the government now sought “to compel the production of highly sensitive personal identifiers held within the Commonwealth’s voter rolls” and asked rhetorically, “What . . . could possibly go wrong?”
Rejecting the government’s interpretation of the Civil Rights Act, the court held in line with the Sixth Circuit decision in U.S. v. Benson, that statewide voter registration are not the “records” protected by the statute because they are continuously updated as required by federal law. The court concluded that the government’s reading “does violence” to the statutory text, remarking that “[t]ortured statutory construction tends to yield such a result.”
The court also found DOJ’s stated “basis and purpose” for seeking the records not persuasive: “concerns regarding widespread voting by non-citizens simply are not borne out by reality.” Rather, “[p]ublic statements from government officials reveal its intentions: to create a nationwide voter-database, for potential weaponization in future elections; as a ‘fishing expedition,’ hoped to advance unsubstantiated claims of non-citizen voting; and as a tool for immigration enforcement.”
Finally, the court held that the Civil Rights Act claim also failed because it had been filed in the wrong judicial district. (“[T]he government suffers the additional indignity of having sued in the wrong place.”) The NVRA and HAVA claims were dismissed with prejudice, while the Civil Rights Act claim was dismissed without prejudice, preserving DOJ’s ability to refile in the correct district. But, the court declined to transfer the Civil Rights Act claim to another district, “[g]iven the defects suffered by the government’s positions, a transfer to the proper forum would not promote justice.” DOJ similarly filed in the wrong district of Georgia, prompting an early procedural dismissal in that case.
This lawsuit arose from the DOJ’s unprecedented decision to seek voter registration data from every state, an expansive exercise of federal authority that DOJ ties to “election integrity” and the President’s March 25, 2025, Executive Order.
United States v. Benson (Michigan)
25-cv-01148 (W.D. Mich.), No. 26-1225 (6th Cir.)
On September 25, 2025, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division announced that it sued Michigan under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel disclosure of the State’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license or last four digits of Social Security numbers). According to the lawsuit, Michigan refused to provide the requested information, citing privacy and other concerns.
On February 3, 2026, fifteen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief, opposing DOJ’s attempt to compel production of sensitive voter records. The attorneys, including trial attorneys, Deputy Chiefs, and Chiefs, worked in voting enforcement for the Civil Rights Division in careers collectively spanning from 1968 to 2025. The brief catalogs DOJ’s longstanding interpretation of the relevant statutes and its past practice of seeking voting information, concluding that DOJ’s “sweeping request” here is “without adequate investigative rationale” and represents a “radical departure” from DOJ’s “targeted, justified” requests in the past.
On February 10, 2026, the district court dismissed the lawsuit in its entirety. The court held that none of the statutes DOJ invoked authorize the disclosure it sought. It dismissed DOJ’s HAVA theory, emphasizing that there was “simply no basis” for the notion that the federal government can “file a HAVA claim, allege no violations of HAVA, and obtain information to support its (as-yet-nonexistent) claim via discovery.”
The court also rejected DOJ’s NVRA theory, concluding that the statute does not require disclosure of the statewide voter list itself and warning: interpreting § 20507(i) to require such disclosure would “contradict the NVRA’s objective of increasing voter participation … because the risk of having one’s personal information misused will deter people from registering to vote” and “would potentially cause the statute to impose an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
Finally, the court dismissed DOJ’s claim under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, holding that the statute reaches records that “come into [election officials’] possession,” not databases created and maintained by the state.
DOJ appealed the dismissal of the Civil Rights Act claim to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and on February 27, 2026, sought expedited consideration of the appeal, asserting that the case “raises an issue of urgency with regard to the security of elections in the United States” and warning that the “appeal will become moot considering the impending federal election.” The emergency motion implies that ineligible voters, including “noncitizens, deceased, and voters with multiple records,” may remain on the rolls if DOJ is not given prompt access to voter registration records, even though DOJ has not offered evidence of a problem with Michigan’s voter rolls or election administration in other states.
On April 14, 2026, sixteen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief in the Sixth Circuit appeal. Like the brief filed in the originating lawsuit, the attorneys here include line attorneys and managers who directed voting rights laws for the Division in careers collectively spanning 1968-2025.
In the brief, the amici argue that “the district court rightly dismissed [the Division’s] complaint, though for the wrong reasons.” Amici contend that although the government does have authority under TItle III to request voter registration records, DOJ “overstepped its bounds by requesting ‘all fields’ of the registration list for every voter in Michigan … without sufficient basis and in furtherance of an improper purpose.”
On June 24, 2026, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling, holding that the statewide voter registration list is not a “paper or record” that “comes into” election officials’ possession within the meaning of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. The court also highlighted DOJ’s inversion of the Civil Rights Act’s original purpose: “Back then, the government used this power to ensure that everyone who had the right to vote could freely exercise that right. But today, the government invokes Title III for an inverse purpose—to ensure that some people have not voted.”
The court also found DOJ failed to allege a sufficient “basis and purpose” for its demand for the statewide voter registration list as required by the Civil Rights Act.
This is the first appellate decision in DOJ’s effort to seize voter roll data from every state in the country plus the District of Columbia.
United States v. Hobbs (Washington)
25-cv-06078 (W.D. Wash.)
On December 2, 2025, the Civil Rights Division announced it sued Washington under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel disclosure of the state’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license number or last four digits of Social Security numbers). According to the lawsuit, Washington refused to provide the requested information.
This lawsuit is rooted in the Division’s unprecedented decision to send letters to all states seeking voter registration data, an expansive exercise of federal authority that the Division ties to “election integrity” and the President’s March 25, 2025, Executive Order.
The Division initially failed the routine task of serving the complaint, significantly delaying the case and undermining the purported urgency of its nationwide attempt to gain access to unredacted voter lists that it has repeatedly represented to courts. The Division missed its 90-day deadline to properly serve Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs with the complaint, prompting a March 10, 2026 court order to file proof of timely service or explain why the case should not be dismissed.
The Division then filed a facially deficient and untimely notice of service. The confusion prompted the court to order the Division to explain why it had failed to comply with the earlier order, why it had not sought an extension of time, what date it contended service had actually occurred, and whether it had made an inaccurate representation to the court by claiming service had already been accomplished.
The Division ultimately attributed the fumble to a “miscommunication.” Its “justifiable excuse” was that it was coordinating multiple related actions nationwide. The explanation is notable given that the Voting Section regularly litigates cases across multiple jurisdictions from its location in Washington, D.C.
The court declined to dismiss the case after the Division ultimately served the Secretary of State. However, it chastised the United States for failing to consider the rules of the district “before instituting this case, rather than after it missed deadlines.”
On June 12, 2026, sixteen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief opposing the Division’s attempt to compel production of sensitive voter records. The attorneys, including trial attorneys and senior officials, worked in voting enforcement for the Civil Rights Division in careers collectively spanning from 1968 to 2025. The brief catalogs DOJ’s longstanding interpretation of the relevant statutes and its past practice of seeking voting information, concluding that the Division’s “sweeping request” here is “without adequate investigative rationale” and represents a “radical departure” from the Division’s “targeted, justified” requests in the past.
United States v. Wisconsin Elections Commission et al.
25-cv-01036 (W.D. Wis.), No. 26-2217 (7th Cir.)
On December 18, 2025, the Civil Rights Division announced it sued Wisconsin under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel the disclosure of the District’s complete voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license number or last four digits of Social Security numbers). According to the lawsuit, Wisconsin refused to provide the requested information, citing privacy concerns.
On February 10, 2026, seventeen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief, opposing the Division’s attempt to compel production of sensitive voter records. The attorneys, including trial attorneys, Deputy Chiefs, and Chiefs, worked in voting enforcement for the Civil Rights Division in careers collectively spanning from 1968 to 2025. The brief catalogs DOJ’s longstanding interpretation of the relevant statutes and its past practice of seeking voting information, concluding that the Division’s “sweeping request” here is “without adequate investigative rationale” and represents a “radical departure” from the Division’s “targeted, justified” requests in the past.
On May 21, 2026, the district court dismissed the Division’s lawsuit in its entirety. Following reasoning similar to United States v. Benson and United States v. Fontes, the court found that the statewide voter registration list is not a record or paper within the meaning of Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 because the list is created by the state, not something that “comes into” election officials’ possession.
The Division appealed this decision on June 5, 2026.
This lawsuit is rooted in the Division’s unprecedented decision to send letters to all states seeking unredacted statewide voter registration lists, an expansive exercise of federal authority that the Division ties to “election integrity” and the March 25, 2025, Executive Order.
United States v. Bellows (Maine)
25-cv-00468 (D. Me.), No. 26-1676 (1st Cir.)
On September 16, 2025, the Civil Rights Division announced that it sued Maine under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) to compel disclosure of the State’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license or last four digits of Social Security numbers). According to the lawsuit, Maine refused to provide the requested information, citing privacy concerns.
On February 20, 2026, sixteen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief, opposing the Division’s attempt to compel production of sensitive voter records. The attorneys, including trial attorneys, Deputy Chiefs, and Chiefs, worked in voting enforcement for the Civil Rights Division in careers collectively spanning from 1968 to 2025. The brief catalogs DOJ’s longstanding interpretation of the relevant statutes and its past practice of seeking voting information, concluding that the Division’s “sweeping request” here is “without adequate investigative rationale” and represents a “radical departure” from the Division’s “targeted, justified” requests in the past.
On May 21, 2026, the district court dismissed the Division’s lawsuit in its entirety. Following reasoning similar to United States v. Benson and United States v. Fontes, the court found that the statewide voter registration list is not a record or paper within the meaning of the CRA because the list is created by the state, not something that “comes into” election officials’ possession.
The district court could have ended its analysis there, but identified a second, independent basis for dismissal. The Division’s purpose for the request—to “loom over the shoulder of the state election official to point out and demand the correction of inaccuracies” in voter rolls—was insufficient to justify the demand. Noting that under HAVA and the NVRA, each individual state, not the Department of Justice, is “the master of its voter list,” the court concluded that if DOJ wished to enforce those statutes, it was required to use the pre-suit investigation and enforcement mechanisms Congress had provided. Those mechanisms, the court explained, do not contemplate production of an unredacted statewide voter registration list to the Attorney General.
The court further characterized the Division’s HAVA and NVRA claims as “half-hearted,” observing that DOJ had “filed a HAVA action in search of a HAVA violation.”
In a footnote, the court also noted that DOJ’s emphatic assurances at a March 26, 2026 hearing that it was not attempting to create a national voter database were almost immediately undermined by an April 3, 2026 executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile a nationwide “State Citizenship List” to assist in verifying voter eligibility.
The Division appealed this decision on June 5, 2026.
This lawsuit is rooted in the Division’s unprecedented decision to send letters to all states seeking unredacted statewide voter registration lists, an expansive exercise of federal authority that the Division ties to “election integrity” and the March 25, 2025, Executive Order.
United States v. Amore (Rhode Island)
25-cv-00639 (D.R.I.)
As part of its nationwide effort, on December 2, 2025, the Civil Rights Division announced it sued Rhode Island under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel disclosure of the State’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license number or last four digits of Social Security numbers).
On April 17, 2026, the court dismissed the case. In its analysis, the court quoted the Constitution’s Elections Clause and explained that states retain “substantial discretion in regulating elections, including maintaining voter registration lists.” The court concluded that the Division’s demand lacked any factual predicate, explaining that “[a]bsent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements of the NVRA and HAVA, let alone the [Civil Rights Act].” It also rejected the Division’s legal theory as exceeding the scope of federal authority, holding that federal law does not “authorize DOJ to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here.”
The Division appealed this decision on June 3, 2026.
This lawsuit is rooted in the Division’s unprecedented decision to send letters to all states seeking unredacted statewide voter registration lists, an expansive exercise of federal authority that the Division ties to “election integrity” and the March 25, 2025, Executive Order.
United States v. Fontes (Arizona)
26-cv-00066 (D. Ariz.), No. 26-3609 (9th Cir.)
On January 6, 2026, the Civil Rights Division announced that it sued Arizona under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel disclosure of the State’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license or last four digits of Social Security numbers). According to the lawsuit, Arizona refused to provide the requested information, citing privacy concerns.
On March 5, 2026, eighteen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief opposing the Division’s attempt to compel production of sensitive voter records. The attorneys, including trial attorneys and senior officials, worked in voting enforcement for the Civil Rights Division in careers collectively spanning from 1968 to 2025. The brief catalogs DOJ’s longstanding interpretation of the relevant statutes and its past practice of seeking voting information, concluding that the Division’s “sweeping request” here is “without adequate investigative rationale” and represents a “radical departure” from the Division’s “targeted, justified” requests in the past.
This lawsuit is rooted in the Division’s unprecedented decision to send letters to all states seeking voter registration data, an expansive exercise of federal authority that the Division ties to “election integrity” and the President’s March 25, 2025, Executive Order.
On April 28, 2026, the district court dismissed the Division’s lawsuit in its entirety. Following the same reasoning as United States v. Benson, the court found that Arizona’s statewide voter list is not a “record[] and paper[] which come into [the State’s] possession” within the meaning of Title III. Instead, the court explained, the statewide voter list is created by state officials.
The Division appealed this decision on June 3, 2026.
United States v. Galvin (Massachusetts)
25-cv-13816 (D. Mass.), No. 26-1657 (1st Cir.)
As part of its nationwide effort, on December 11, 2025, the Civil Rights Division announced that it sued Massachusetts under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel disclosure of the State’s complete statewide voter registration list, including highly confidential personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license number or last four digits of Social Security numbers).
On February 13, 2026, seventeen former Civil Rights Division attorneys filed an amicus brief opposing the Division’s attempt to compel production of sensitive voter records. The attorneys, including trial attorneys, Deputy Chiefs, and Chiefs, worked in voting enforcement for the Civil Rights Division in careers collectively spanning from 1968 to 2025. The brief carefully catalogs DOJ’s longstanding interpretation of the relevant statutes and its past practice of seeking voting information, concluding that the Division’s “sweeping request” here is “without adequate investigative rationale” and represents a “radical departure” from the Division’s “targeted, justified” requests in the past.
On April 9, 2026, the court dismissed the case. The court concluded that the Divisions’ demand was facially deficient because it failed to include the factual basis required by statute. As the court explained, “Here, the Attorney General offered no basis—none—and the demand was therefore facially inadequate.”
The Division appealed this decision on June 1, 2026.
CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT
Born in Reconstruction. Federal civil rights accountability at its core.
EMPLOYMENT
Equal opportunity at work is essential to economic security, dignity, and full civic participation.
POLICING
The Constitution and federal law exist to protect people from abuses of power—including by those sworn to uphold it.
DISABILITY
Federal civil rights laws guarantee people with disabilities equal participation in community life.
VOTING
The right to vote is foundational to democracy and equal participation in civic life.
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Where people live and access services shapes opportunity.
EDUCATION
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