United States v. Raffensperger
Justice Department suit for Georgia's unredacted voter list, No. 1:26-cv-00485.
United States v. Raffensperger was dismissed on 30 September 2026 without leave to amend, leaving the Justice Department without Georgia's unredacted voter list and, by Democracy Docket's count, handing it a 26th straight loss in its voter-roll suits.
Last refreshed: 1 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Timeline for United States v. Raffensperger
Ended at district level on 30 September
US Midterms 2026: Judge dismisses DOJ's Georgia voter suitBackground
United States v. Raffensperger, No. 1:26-cv-00485, was the Justice Department's suit to force Georgia to hand over its full, unredacted voter list, including dates of birth, Social Security numbers and driver licence numbers. It named Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as defendant.
The department's requests began on 9 July 2025, when it asked for the list and said it wanted to run it through the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE database. It first cited Title III in a letter of 14 August 2025 and filed suit on 23 January 2026. the Court's order noted that Georgia already shares data with ERIC through one-way hashing.
Georgia's case is one front in the department's state-by-state push for voter files, and it turned on a state privacy statute rather than on federal election law alone.
The department's Georgia demand fails
The case ended in the Northern District of Georgia on 30 September 2026. Judge Victoria Marie Calvert held that Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the statute the department relied on, does not preempt Georgia's voter-privacy law.
Georgia law releases confidential voter data to a federal agency only if it is used solely to identify the voter and kept confidential, and the Court found the department would not accept those limits. Because the department never asked for leave to amend, the dismissal closes this suit in this court. It joins the run of defeats Democracy Docket tallies across the department's demands for state voter files.
Why did a judge dismiss the Justice Department's Georgia voter roll lawsuit?
What voter data did the Justice Department want from Georgia?
Does Georgia share voter data with other states?
