DOJ Sues Six States Over Voter Registration Data

On Sept. 25, 2025 the U.S. Department of Justice sued six states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, New York, New Hampshire and Minnesota — seeking full, unredacted statewide voter registration lists and information about how the states maintain their rolls. The complaints, filed in federal court, invoke the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act and demand full names, addresses, dates of birth and either state driver's-license numbers or the last four digits of voters' Social Security numbers. Many states offered redacted, publicly available lists and argued that turning over sensitive identifiers would violate privacy protections and state law; state officials including Pennsylvania Secretary Al Schmidt and Michigan election authorities defended withholding full databases. DOJ officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, said the suits are part of a nationwide enforcement push, following similar actions against Maine and Oregon and letters to dozens of states, and that the department will go to court where states "don't fulfill that obligation."