Voting Rights and Election Administration

U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said he will dismiss the Trump Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking Oregon’s unredacted voter rolls and will issue a written opinion, marking a second federal‑court rebuff after an earlier California ruling. The decision, part of the DOJ’s multi‑state effort that has sued at least 23 states and D.C., drew praise from Oregon AG Dan Rayfield—who said federal voting laws cannot be used as a “backdoor” to obtain dates of birth, driver’s‑license numbers and partial Social Security numbers—and has prompted criticism, including over a related letter to Minnesota officials seen by critics as a coercive bid for detailed voter data.

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.