Federal Judge in Oregon Tosses DOJ Suit for Full Unredacted Voter Rolls

U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai in Oregon has dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking the state’s full, unredacted voter registration database, marking another major defeat for the Trump administration’s multi‑state push to collect detailed voter data from the states. At a Monday hearing, Kasubhai granted Oregon’s motion to dismiss and said a written opinion will follow, after state Attorney General Dan Rayfield argued DOJ never satisfied the legal standard to demand names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers for every registered voter. The ruling comes on the heels of similar setbacks in California — where a judge called DOJ’s request "unprecedented and illegal" — and in Georgia, where a case was tossed on venue grounds, even as Attorney General Pam Bondi continues to press governors like Minnesota’s Tim Walz to open voter rolls as a condition of "helping bring back law and order" on immigration. Election officials and civil‑rights advocates have warned that the department may be trying to repurpose sensitive voter data for non‑election uses, including hunting for noncitizens, a concern amplified by Bondi’s recent letter tying voter‑roll access to demands for state Medicaid and food‑assistance records and repeal of sanctuary laws. The Oregon dismissal adds judicial weight to those privacy and overreach arguments and signals that, for now, federal courts are unwilling to let DOJ build a de facto national voter file under existing voting‑rights statutes.