Trump’s Justice Department wants California to hand over voter lists
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Justice Department sues California, five states over access to voter rolls.
- Administration cites election integrity; states raise privacy, misuse concerns.
- Critics warn federal database could promote fraud claims, target opposition.
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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LAWSUIT DEMANDS VOTER LISTS
The Justice Department Thursday filed lawsuits against California and five other states in an effort to get them to produce their statewide voter registration rolls, another step in the Trump administration’s effort to exert more control over elections.
States have been reluctant to turn over those lists, which can contain personal information that election officials fear can be used improperly.
In the lawsuit, Justice notes that California officials have been “expressing concerns about privacy protections.” The lawsuit details what Justice says is a lack of cooperation.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber had a scathing response.
“This lawsuit, like those filed against multiple other states, is a fishing expedition and pretext for partisan policy objectives,” she said in a statement.
“The U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to utilize the federal court system to erode the rights of the State of California and its citizens by trying to intimidate California officials into giving up the private and personal information of 23 million California voters. The lawsuit and intentions behind it are a blatant overreach by the federal government.”
The Trump administration has argued that it wants to purge the rolls of people ineligible to vote and to make stronger efforts to combat fraud. Independent studies have found little fraud, though, in recent presidential elections.
The Justice Department will argue that it needs stronger tools to combat abuse.
“Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday in a statement.
The administration believes that “clean voter rolls protect American citizens from voting fraud and abuse, and restore their confidence that their states’ elections are conducted properly, with integrity, and in compliance with the law,” said Harmeet Dhillon, who heads Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
Before working for Justice, Dhillon was a San Francisco-based attorney and adviser to Trump. She was a forceful advocate for challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Weber maintained that “State law is clear—California has a legal obligation to protect our voters’ sensitive private information. The U.S. Department of Justice has refused our invitation to view the data in the manner contemplated by federal statutes that would protect California citizens’ private and personal data from misuse.”
Justice, she said, “failed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands, and this lawsuit constitutes an unprecedented intrusion unsupported by law or any previous practice or policy of the Department of Justice.”
Other states whose records were sought Thursday are Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. The lawsuits were filed in the federal districts of the affected states.
Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has been trying to exert more federal control over elections, which historically have been run by states. Officials in several states as well as civil rights and other groups have questioned why Washington wants such data.
“The DOJ’s demands for the voter files are one element of the attempted federal takeover of federal elections,” wrote Eileen O’Connor, senior counsel and manager at the Brennan Center for Justice, on its website.
“If its requests succeed, the department could amass a federal database of personal information about every registered voter in the country,” she said.
O’Connor warned that the administration could use the database “to further promote false claims about election fraud, target political opponents, or attempt to force states to remove voters from the rolls based on incomplete information.”
EPSTEIN FILE VOTE NEEDS ONE MORE SUPPORTER
All 43 California House Democrats joined the effort to get the House to vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files — and a special election this week in Arizona will likely be what gets that vote done.
House Republican leaders have been thwarting efforts to get that vote. But Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democrat Ro Khanna of Santa Clara teamed up to create a “discharge petition,” a way of forcing the vote on making public federal investigative material on the convicted sex offender.
The petition needs 218 signatures to succeed, and so far has 217. It includes all of the House’s 213 Democrats and four Republicans.
The 218th signature now appears likely, coming from Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat who on Tuesday was elected to succeed her father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died in March.
The daughter is expected to be sworn into office early next month, which would probably tee up a vote later in October..
California Democrats have been united in their effort to get the files released. “The American people deserve answers,” Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said on Facebook after signing. Rep. Ami Bera, D-Sacramento, posted, “The victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes deserve justice and accountability.”
None of California’s nine Republican House members signed the petition. Republicans signing were Massie and Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“If Newsom doesn’t think there will be a 2028 election, why does he spend all of his time posturing for the 2028 election?”
— Tweet by Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Roseville, after Gov. Gavin Newsom told “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that he fears “we will not have an election in 2028 unless we wake up.”
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