26JUL

DOJ loses again on state voter files

3 min read

10:41UTC

A Kentucky federal court threw out the Justice Department's voter-file demand on 23 July, the seventeenth dismissal in a programme that has yet to win a single ruling.

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Key takeaway

Seventeen dismissals rest on a pleading defect, not on any ruling that the demand itself is unlawful.

A federal court in Kentucky dismissed the Department of Justice (DOJ)'s suit for the state's voter file on 23 July, the seventeenth such dismissal since the programme began. The department filed a notice of appeal against a separate loss the same day, in Connecticut, where its case had been thrown out on 17 July. DOJ has sued 30 states and Washington DC, 31 cases in all: seventeen dismissed on the merits, one settled in Oklahoma, thirteen still live.

The State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, which maintains the public tracker of the litigation, updated it on 24 July with a flat sentence: "To date, no court at either the district court or appellate court level has ruled in favor of the Justice Department." ¹ What the department asks each state for is the unredacted roll, the version carrying fields officials strip out before releasing voter lists to the public.

Those rulings share a defect rather than a doctrine. A Massachusetts court threw out the first of them in April on the narrow ground that DOJ never identified the statute authorising its demand , and defendant states have copied the argument since, in front of judges appointed by presidents of both parties. None of the seventeen holds that the data may not be obtained. They hold that the department has not said why it may.

The programme has not stopped. DOJ took all eight of its early losses upward at once in June , and the one appeal decided so far went against it when a 6th Circuit panel affirmed the Michigan dismissal . The department reached for the courts only after the executive route closed. Judge Denise Casper permanently blocked Donald Trump's elections executive order, ruling that the president has no authority over how states run their elections . An executive order needs no statute behind it. A federal complaint does.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is the US government's main law-enforcement agency. It has asked more than 30 states to hand over their full voter rolls, including details states normally keep private. Courts have said no seventeen times in a row, not because judges decided the government has no right to the data, but because DOJ never told them which law gives it that right. Until it does, states keep saying no, and no judge has to decide the bigger question.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

DOJ's litigation programme depends on two federal statutes written for different purposes. The National Voter Registration Act's Section 8(i) creates a public-inspection right, but it runs to any person, not a special power for the department to demand unredacted files.

The Help America Vote Act sets minimum standards for statewide voter databases, but assigns enforcement to the states themselves, not to Washington. Neither obviously grants a federal production power over the sensitive fields states withhold from public release.

The Massachusetts court's dismissal on 9 April supplied the template every subsequent state has copied : rule against the pleading, not the underlying demand. Seventeen courts adopting the same narrow ground, rather than seventeen independent rulings on the merits, is why the department can still refile if it ever names a statute that fits.

What could happen next?

Precedent
Thirteen still-active defendant states can now cite seventeen concurring district-court rulings in their own motions to dismiss, raising DOJ's cost in every remaining case.
Risk
A cleanly repleaded complaint naming NVRA Section 8(i) would test a question no court has yet decided: whether the underlying demand for unredacted voter files is lawful at all.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In United States v. California, 921 F.3d 865 (9th Cir. 2019), the United States sued to block California's SB 54 sanctuary-law provisions and the Ninth Circuit largely upheld the state's law, finding no clear congressional command forcing California's cooperation, the same structural failure now recurring seventeen times over voter files: a federal demand for state-held records with no unambiguous statutory command behind it.

Counter-parallel: Judicial Watch, Inc. v. King, 993 F. Supp. 2d 919 (S.D. Ind. 2012) shows the mechanism working when the statute is named. There, private plaintiffs invoked the National Voter Registration Act's Section 8(i) public-inspection clause directly against Indiana's voter-list maintenance records, the specific hook DOJ's own suits have never pleaded.

Consensus view: Rick Hasen, an election-law scholar at UC Irvine who tracks this litigation closely, has noted that all seventeen dismissals rest on the same pleading gap: no complaint has named the statute authorising the demand, so no court has reached the merits of whether the records must be produced.

Counter-view: Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative has argued that the National Voter Registration Act's Section 8(i) public-inspection provision already gives federal authorities a workable hook, and that the losses reflect sloppy drafting rather than a genuine absence of authority.

Key tension: Whether a properly pleaded complaint naming Section 8(i) would survive where seventeen vaguer ones failed, or whether the underlying demand has no statutory basis at all.

Sources:State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin Law School

Mentions:Department of Justice →Connecticut →Kentucky →Oklahoma →University of Wisconsin Law State Democracy Research Initiative →Massachusetts →9th Circuit →Donald Trump →Denise Casper →Michigan →Wisconsin →National Voter Registration Act →Judicial Watch →Heritage Foundation →University of Wisconsin Law School →United States →California →Washington, D.C. →

First Reported In

Update #14 · 0-for-17 in court, and the map that held

State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin Law School· 26 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Massachusetts court kills DOJ voter suit

The Massachusetts court's April dismissal on missing statutory authority became the template every subsequent DOJ voter-data dismissal followed.

Occurred 9 Apr 2026

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DOJ stakes voter-data fight on appeal

DOJ's June commitment to appeal every early loss set up the appellate track that has produced only one decided appeal.

Occurred 16 Jun 2026

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Sixth Circuit rejects DOJ roll demand

The 6th Circuit's June affirmance of the Michigan dismissal remains DOJ's only decided appeal, and it lost.

Occurred 24 Jun 2026

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Trump's voting order blocked for good

Judge Casper's permanent block on Trump's elections executive order closed off direct federal control, pushing DOJ toward the litigation this record now shows failing.

Occurred 24 Jun 2026

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This Event

DOJ loses again on state voter files

The administration's main instrument for reaching state voter rolls has produced no wins in a year of litigation, with thirteen cases still live.

Different Perspectives

Senate Budget Committee under Ron Johnson

Johnson, reported to succeed the late Lindsey Graham as Budget chair on 22 July, has a record of opposing reconciliation packages on deficit grounds, a different proposition than his predecessor for carrying the $10bn voter-ID grant through the Senate on 51 votes after the House passed its version 216-214.

NRCC and Republican committee strategists

The NRCC's $92.7m cash on hand outweighs the DCCC's $79.0m by $13.7m even after Democrats out-raised them $37.4m to $35.4m in the second quarter, official FEC filings from 20 July confirmed. Strategists are banking on the reserve gap, not this quarter's receipts, to carry House races.

Memphis civil-rights plaintiffs

The Black Clergy Collaborative and allied Memphis plaintiffs argued Tennessee's redraw split the state's only Black-majority district to dilute their vote, and lost on 23 July when the panel found the map "driven by politics, not race". The ruling leaves it governing the 6 August primary while their underlying trial continues.

Department of Justice

DOJ filed notice of appeal on its Connecticut dismissal the same day, 23 July, a Kentucky court threw out an identical suit, its seventeenth loss without ever pleading which statute authorises the voter-file demand. It continues pressing 13 live cases on an appellate strategy that has produced one ruling, the 6th Circuit's Benson loss.

Overseas and military voters

1,051 UOCAVA voters had requested ballots for the original 9 June primary before Graham's death on 11 July moved the calendar entirely. Dhillon's 19-20 July agreement sets a fresh 1 August mailing date for the 11 August primary, a fix that arrived after the vacancy it addresses rather than before it.

South Carolina State Election Commission

Commission director Conway Belangia declared the June-primary crossover review "completed" on 16 July, barring anyone who voted in the June Democratic primary from the 11 August Republican special primary, citing only "the requirements of South Carolina election law" without naming the statute. Both parties accepted the ruling rather than challenge it.