Second Circuit
US federal appeals court for New York, Connecticut and Vermont.
On 28 July 2026 the court opened docket 26-2060, a federal appeal over New York's voter registration file, giving the Justice Department's voter-data programme a live appeal in a third circuit.
Last refreshed: 4 August 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Timeline for Second Circuit
A third circuit takes the voter-file fight
US Midterms 2026Background
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of thirteen federal appellate courts and hears appeals from the district courts of New York, Connecticut and Vermont. It sits at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in Manhattan.
Federal appellate courts decide independently of one another, which is the structural fact that makes them important to any litigant with a poor district-court record. A ruling binds only within the circuit that issues it, so a party losing repeatedly in trial courts can seek a favourable holding in one circuit and, where circuits then disagree, create the split that most often precedes Supreme Court review.
The Second Circuit's jurisdiction gives it particular reach in election administration. New York alone runs one of the largest state voter registration systems in the country, so questions about the federal government's authority over state voter files carry weight here beyond the three states the court covers.
The court inherited a losing federal record
A civil appeal on behalf of the United States was opened on the court's docket on 28 July 2026, numbered 26-2060, with the electronic index filed in lieu of the record that afternoon and the district court order under appeal dated 10 July .
The appeal arrives with a particular history behind it. Every merits ruling in the federal voter-file programme so FAR has gone against the government, including the one appellate decision already issued elsewhere. That leaves this court among a small number able to supply the precedent the programme has not obtained at district level, or to ADD to a record of refusals that has so FAR been unbroken. No argument date has been set.
