Civil rights groups sue to keep DOJ from reviewing state voter lists
Civil rights groups sue to keep DOJ from reviewing state voter lists
Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Tue, April 21, 2026 at 3:18 PM UTC
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WASHINGTON – Civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit aiming to block the Justice Department from collecting and reviewing state voter lists to weed out ineligible voters, arguing that the federal government has no role under the Constitution to manage state elections.
The advocacy group Common Cause, along with a handful of voters, also wants to prevent the federal government from creating a database with the personal information of hundreds of millions of voters' addresses, driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers.
The lawsuit is the latest legal battlefield over voter registration amid President Donald Trump’s campaign to prevent undocumented immigrants and other ineligible voters from casting ballots. Justice lawyers have argued in other cases that they have the power to collect and review rolls to prevent fraud.
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Omar Noureldin, Common Cause's senior vice president of policy and litigation, said the author George Orwell warned about such government surveillance in his book "1984."
"Essentially it’s a Big Brother type issue," Noureldin, a senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Biden administration, told USA TODAY. "We should be suspicious of the federal government engaging in creating large databases."
Common Cause is represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the American Civil Liberties Union, Protect Democracy and the Democracy and Rule of Law Clinic at Harvard Law School.
The civil rights groups are asking the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, to order the Justice Department to delete the confidential voter data it has already collected from more than a dozen states. The lawsuit also asks the court to prevent the department from sharing the voter data with other agencies or third-party contractors because of privacy concerns it could be hacked.
Trump seeks to 'nationalize' elections
The lawsuit was filed as the Justice Department is fighting in federal court in 30 states and the District of Columbia for voter lists with the confidential information. At the same time, Trump has urged Congress to approve legislation requiring identification to vote and proof of citizenship to register.
"The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting," Trump said on Dan Bongino’s podcast in February.
The Justice Department has demanded that states turn over voter lists to help remove ineligible voters such as undocumented immigrants, dead people and those who have moved. The department has sued states that agreed to turn over names but refused to also provide personal information such as driver’s license numbers and the final four digits of Social Security numbers. In some states, the voter data includes party affiliation and the history of when voters cast ballots.
To combat that effort, the latest lawsuit from Common Cause and CREW aims to prevent the department from using the personal information of voters from at least 12 states that have already provided it and up to 19 that have said they would provide it. The first 12 states to share the information are Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
"The U.S. Department of Justice ('DOJ') has launched an illegal and unprecedented quest to stockpile millions of Americans’ confidential voter data in a system of record within its Civil Rights Division," the lawsuit said. "DOJ is using this highly sensitive data to build – without statutory authorization – a sprawling new voter surveillance and purging apparatus that endangers millions of Americans’ fundamental voting and privacy rights."
President Donald Trump answers questions after signing an executive order to limit mail-in voting in the Oval Office of the White House on March 31, 2026 in Washington, DC.DOJ seeks state lists to find noncitizens, other ineligible voters
Government lawyers have said they want to check state voter lists against the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to confirm whether they are U.S. citizens.
Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced in October 2025 that the state compared its voter list against the SAVE database and found 2,724 potential noncitizens out of 18 million registered voters in the state. She said 33 people had been referred to the attorney general’s office in June.
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But the civil rights lawsuit contends the system is "flawed" and "faulty" because citizens born outside the United States who have become naturalized are at higher risk to be identified as noncitizens, which imperils their right to vote.
Anthony Nel of Denton County, Texas, is a plaintiff in the case because he was removed from the state's voter rolls last year despite being a U.S. citizen. Nel was born in South Africa in 1996 but became a citizen when his parents were naturalized in 2013.
After voting early in the November 2025 election, Nel received a letter from the county registrar saying the federal SAVE system showed "that you were not a United States citizen" and asked him to provide proof of his citizenship. By the time he renewed an expired passport in December 2025, he had missed a 30-day deadline to provide his documentation and his voter registration had been canceled.
"When I first got the letter, my initial feelings were frustration and probably a little bit of anger," Nel told USA TODAY. "I’m a naturalized citizen because of my parents, and so it’s frustrating when you do everything right because that’s what they tell you to do and it’s still causing issues."
A voter registration table at the inaugural Northeast Georgia Black Business Expo at Georgia Square Mall in Athens, Ga. on Nov. 15, 2025.Judges found no authorization for DOJ 'fishing expedition'
The Justice Department has argued in other cases that it had the authority to ask for voter lists to prevent fraud under the 1960 Civil Rights Act, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the 2002 Helping Americans to Vote Act.
But federal judges have dismissed the department’s lawsuits in five states: California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The judges have noted the Constitution says: "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the Legislature."
The statutes that federal lawyers cited allow investigations of specific allegations of voter fraud, but judges ruled against the sweeping demands for voter information the Justice Department made.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island found no factual allegations that the state was violating the law in maintaining its voter list. She said the statutes the department cited don’t authorize "the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here."
The civil rights lawsuit raised the same arguments against the department’s access to voter data from states that complied.
"No federal statute authorizes DOJ’s sprawling new voter surveillance, data consolidation, and purging operation," the lawsuit says. "In taking these actions, DOJ is usurping powers that the Constitution and federal statutes vest in the States."
Protesters attend March 28, 2026, rally at Drake Springs Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as part of the third installment of the national No Kings movement to oppose President Donald Trump.States disregarded privacy of millions of Americans: lawsuit
Aside from the lack of authorization for the voter data, the civil rights groups contend that storing the sensitive data about hundreds of millions of voters in a single federal system creates a greater risk of targeting by hackers and foreigners trying to undermine elections and data security.
"These states have disregarded the privacy and voting rights of millions of Americans who never consented to disclosing their sensitive personal data to the federal government for undefined purposes and without statutory authorization," the lawsuit says.
Ruth Nasrullah of Texas joined the lawsuit because her name has changed three times because of marriage and divorce. She has heightened concerns about her privacy because of her experience as an activist and a journalist.
"Due to her heightened privacy concerns, she intentionally protects her personal information and limits the personal information she shares," the lawsuit says.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lawsuit filed to prevent DOJ from reviewing state voter lists
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