Federal Requests for Statewide Voter Lists

Easily browse the critical components of this report…

Key Takeaways

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice began sending requests to chief election officials across the country to inspect copies of their statewide voter registration lists in May 2025. States are responsible for maintaining voter lists and have laws governing the information that can be shared from these lists.

Although the National Voter Registration Act sets baseline requirements for maintaining accurate voter lists, federal involvement in list maintenance processes has been limited and the DOJ has not requested unredacted voter lists from states. There is no national voter registration database and, historically, the federal government has not collected comprehensive voter list data.

After a series of inquires and correspondence with states, the DOJ began filing lawsuits against some states that did not provide their entire, unredacted voter lists. As of Jan. 16, 2026, the DOJ has filed lawsuits against 24 states and Washington, D.C. The states sued include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The DOJ has the authority to investigate state election processes, though most cases in recent history have focused on potential violations of the Voting Rights Act. Before 2025 the DOJ has not requested entire statewide voter registration lists. It will be up to the courts to interpret federal law to determine what state voter information is considered private and what authority the DOJ has to obtain unredacted personal information.

As of Feb. 10, the cases against California, Michigan and Oregon have been dismissed by federal courts. The initial case against Georgia was dismissed because it was filed in the wrong court, and the DOJ filed a new case in the Northern District Court of Georgia. Lawsuits will continue to play out in the coming months. For more information on these lawsuits, see the University of Wisconsin Law School's tracker.

Federal Lawsuits and Voter List Maintenance: The DOJ's Argument

The DOJ points to several provisions of federal law in asserting that it is entitled to state voter lists. In some requests, the Justice Department cites section 20507(i) of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requirement that states maintain records related to efforts to ensure the accuracy of voter lists and to make those records available for public inspection. Every state makes parts of their voter lists available to the public, though the data provided and who can access these lists may vary by state. Many states also have opt-in privacy protections for elected officials, and most states have opt-in privacy protections for victims of domestic violence.

In other requests, the DOJ cites the federal government's obligation to enforce the Help America Vote Act's requirements to maintain a computerized statewide voter registration database. In pursuit of this, the DOJ requests a copy of the file with voters' names, dates of birth, last 4 SSN digits and Department of Motor Vehicles ID numbers.

The lawsuits against states also cite Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which grants the attorney general the power to obtain state records related to voting and voter registration. The DOJ argues that this includes records related to states' efforts to comply with the NVRA and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The DOJ also asserts in these suits that unredacted copies of statewide voter registration lists are necessary to ensure state compliance with those statutes. Put another way, the DOJ argues that it needs voter lists to assess state compliance with the NVRA and HAVA, and that the attorney general is entitled to such NVRA- and HAVA-related records by Title III of the Civil Rights Act.

The Backstory: State-Federal Interactions Before the Lawsuits

The initial requests asked states to demonstrate compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, citing federal requirements for states to provide records of their efforts to ensure the accuracy of their voter lists. Some of the requests have also referenced the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and its requirements to maintain a statewide voter registration database. The requests have also asked states to provide copies of their statewide voter registration lists including sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) like dates of birth, DMV numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

States responded to the requests in one of three ways:

• By addressing the DOJ's questions about list maintenance processes and asking for more information on how the information will be used and/or asking about how the DOJ will comply with state and federal privacy laws but not providing any list.
• Examples: Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, and Washington
• By addressing the DOJ's questions about list maintenance processes and providing or guiding the DOJ to the publicly available version of the statewide voter list, excluding PII.
• Examples: Colorado, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia
• By providing or stating they will provide the entire statewide voter list, including PII such as dates of birth and partial SSNs and DMV numbers.
• Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming

Throughout fall 2025, the DOJ sent multiple follow-up communications including offers to enter memorandums of understanding with states to share unredacted voter list information. Many states responded to the offers with more questions on how the lists will be used. Some officials expressed concern that the lists may be used alongside the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, to compare state records with DHS records to ensure that potential noncitizens are removed from voter registration lists.

Overview of Additional Relevant Federal and State Privacy Laws

Additional federal laws address data privacy and voter registration. The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits any federal, state or local government from denying an individual of any right-including registering to vote or voting-because of their refusal to disclose their Social Security number. This means that states cannot require an individual to provide their Social Security number to register to vote.

The Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1993 prohibits the disclosure of certain individual information derived from motor vehicle records. The protected information includes an individual's DMV number and SSN. Federal law permits this information to be used for government functions such as list maintenance, but states often place additional safeguards on using this information for cross-state comparisons of voter registration lists and frequently prohibit sensitive ID number disclosure in public versions of voter lists.

Some state laws prohibit disclosure of some voter data such SSNs and DMV numbers as well as complete date of birth. For example, in the Wisconsin Election Commission's response to the DOJ's request for their statewide list, they cite Wis. Stat. § 6.36(1)(b)1.a which prohibits anyone-except state and local election officials-from viewing a voter's date of birth, DMV number or SSN. State laws and parts of the previously mentioned federal laws are why some state election officials claim they cannot provide the entire lists to comply with voter privacy laws.

Legislative Action

Most of the interactions in the past year between federal and state entities regarding federal access to state voter lists were between chief election officials and the DOJ, but in some cases other state-level entities have become involved. Lawmakers in Nebraska have contacted their secretary of state to determine their intent to comply with the Department of Justice demands, and the Michigan House adopted a resolution urging their secretary of state to comply with the demands for the computerized statewide voter registration list. Most recently, the Georgia Senate introduced a similar resolution and the Georgia House introduced a resolution urging the secretary of state to protect private data in the state's voter registration lists from the DOJ requests.