Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking
Federal Legislation: U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennet, Alex Padilla, and 35 of their colleagues, introduced the Mail and Absentee Voter Protection Act to block President Trump’s executive order on mail and absentee ballots. Specifically, the Absentee MVP Act would nullify Trump’s unlawful March 31 executive order (EO) and bars any similar EO. It also provides additional limits on the Trump administration’s attempts to implement the actions in the illegal EO by: Blocking the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DHS from sharing state voter lists; Defunding the DOJ’s efforts to compel production of state voter lists; Enforcing the Privacy Act by barring federal agencies from improperly sharing voter data, both within the government and with outside groups; and Defunding any future Commerce Department efforts to enact partisan regulation of mail in ballots. “In a country founded on the ideals of ‘We, the People,’ in which the right to vote is fundamental to who we are as a nation — people shouldn’t have to work too hard to have their voices heard and their votes counted,” said Padilla. “Instead of focusing on lowering costs, ending the illegal war in Iran and bringing our troops home, and improving the lives of Americans across the country, too many Republicans in Congress are shamefully focused on making it more difficult for Americans to cast their ballots in November. Democrats are full court press on pushing back against these blatant attempts to silence the American people.”
California Ballot Measure: A proposal that would require California to verify proof of citizenship when a person registers to vote — and require voters to provide identification at polling places — will appear on the November ballot, state officials announced last week. If voters approve it, they would be required to show a government-issued ID each time they go to the polls, while mail-in ballots would need the last-four digits of an ID, such as a driver’s license. The secretary of state and county election offices would also be required to verify voters’ registration each time they vote. Currently, voters only need to provide an ID and Social Security number when they register to vote. Californians broadly support voter identification at the polls but are split along ideological lines when given specific details about the ballot measure, according to a 2026 poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies. When told the measure is meant to combat voter fraud and that it could suppress eligible votes, support dipped to 37%.
Connecticut: The campaign to make voting by mail a universal option in Connecticut moved forward April 23 as the House Democratic majority passed and sent to the Senate legislation that would lift the last barriers to no-excuse absentee voting. House Bill 5001 passed on a party-line vote of 101-49, reflecting a divide that opened during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when President Donald J. Trump denounced emergency measures liberalizing voting by mail. The bill would repeal a law that now denies absentee ballots to any voter who cannot attest to being unable to vote in person due to sickness, disability, absence, military service, religious conflicts or being an elections worker. Until the passage of a constitutional amendment in November 2024 by a margin of 58% to 42%, those same six conditions were part of a state constitution that was unusually prescriptive on rules for absentee voting. The amended version allows voters to sign up for absentee ballot applications to be automatically mailed to them, not the actual ballot.
Kentucky: The Legislature overrode Gov. Andy Breshear’s veto of HB 139, an omnibus bill making numerous changes to Kentucky election laws. Under current law, Kentucky voters who cannot obtain a photo ID may present certain types of ID and sign an affidavit to vote. The bill removes food stamp cards, Social Security cards, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cards from the list of IDs that can be used if a person can’t obtain photo identification. It also removes the option for election workers to affirm the identity of individuals they personally know. The legislation also authorizes the State Board of Elections to enter into data-sharing agreements with the federal government to identify noncitizens on the voter rolls and prohibits the use of voting equipment that uses nonhuman-readable codes, such as barcodes. The Republican-controlled Senate and House both approved HB 139 along party lines. Beshear vetoed the bill on April 10. The House voted 80-20 to override the veto on April 14, with the Senate following suit later that day in a 32-6 vote.
Maryland: Gov. Wes Moore signed another batch of bills into law this week including a bill aimed at protecting voter rights.The Voting Rights Act of 2026 is an emergency bill that passed the General Assembly on the final day after causing controversy between lawmakers. It aims to prevent local and county governments from impacting voters or the results of an election. The new law will also allow residents or the state’s attorney general to sue local and county governments over their voting processes or plans. “It ensures that if you honestly believe in democracy, more people should participate and not fewer,” Moore said during the bill signing. State Sen. Charles Sydnor sponsored the bill and said Maryland is leading the way to make sure everyone’s right to vote is protected. Voting rights advocates in Maryland say the Supreme Court actions underscores the importance of passing this state law now. “The onus has really been on state-level leaders to ensure that they are doing everything they can to protect access to the ballot and help to preserve and advance democracy,” said Natasha Murphy, from Black Girls Vote.
Massachusetts: During this week’s budget debate, lawmakers in the House voted down an amendment that would have covered the cost of photo identification for voters. Rep. Marc Lombardo offered an amendment directing the secretary of state to provide free photo ID cards for voters without valid government-issued IDs and who sign an affidavit. Lombardo said his proposal would protect “election integrity”. Rep. Rita Mendes, a Brockton Democrat born in Brazil, reflected on the additional steps she faced to secure an ID and cautioned the proposal would disproportionately impact voters in Gateway Cities like hers.
Missouri: With less than three weeks left to go in the Missouri legislative session, a wide-ranging elections bill is waiting in line to come up for Senate debate. The legislation is designed to ease administrative burdens for local election offices. It’s been years in the making for Missouri’s county clerks and State Rep. Peggy McGaugh, R-Carrollton. She served as the Carroll County Clerk for 32 years. “It has all the things that the local election authorities have needed,” she told Missourinet. The bill would allow government offices to email election notices. Another feature of her bill would give all Missouri election authorities the option to mail a notice of a sample ballot to voters – rather than publishing a notice in the newspaper. The bill would require automatic tabulating machines to be tested a week in advance of an election instead of two weeks. The proposal would also let voters cast a provisional ballot in any public election – not just state and federal ones.
North Dakota: Home addresses of North Dakota legislative candidates and public officials would be confidential records under a bill draft being developed by a legislative committee. The bill would apply to a broad array of candidates and officials, from school board members to the governor, who could opt in to have their address treated as confidential information by government agencies. The proposal discussed last week grew out of discussions on how to improve the security of legislators and other officials that have been ongoing since the shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers last June. Senate Minority Leader Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo, suggested tabling the bill draft until the next meeting of the interim Legislative Procedure and Arrangements Committee to give lawmakers more time to consider possible unintended consequences. “This is a pretty significant change in public records, and I think we understand why it needs to happen, and I believe many states are doing this,” Hogan said. “But it’s a fascinating question, isn’t it, are there unintended consequences?”
South Carolina Rulemaking: South Carolina can send voter information to the U.S. Department of Justice under an agreement the State Election Commission approved this week. The commission’s 4-1 vote ended months of deliberation over how South Carolina should respond to the Trump administration’s request to review voter data in an effort to remove those ineligible to participate, which prompted privacy concerns. Commissioner Joanne Day was the only “no” vote. Afterward, she said she still had constitutional concerns but declined to elaborate. The memorandum state elections director Conway Belangia signed Tuesday “is an apolitical agreement that responsibly balances DOJ’s legitimate governmental interests” with “the SEC’s statutory obligations under South Carolina law and its duty to safeguard, simultaneously, the integrity of South Carolina’s elections and the personal information of South Carolina’s registered voters,” according to a cover letter included. A representative for the Department of Justice has already signed the nine-page agreement. Election officials plan to transmit the voter rolls within the week, Belangia said. “We feel like the agreement is protecting those things that we need protected,” Belangia said.
Legal Updates
U.S. Supreme Court: The Supreme Court further eroded the Voting Rights Act strictly limiting how racial discrimination can be remedied in redistricting maps. In a 37-page opinion, the majority held that “because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the state’s use of race in creating SB8, and that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act established a violation when political processes are not equally open to participation by members of a certain race, who have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. It stems from the 15th Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination in voting. But under the Supreme Court’s renewed interpretation, the opportunity that any given group of voters has to elect their candidate of choice depends on the voting preferences of other voters in the district, not race. “For example, in a district where most voters prefer Democratic candidates, a Republican voter in that district will have a low chance of securing the election of his or her preferred candidate,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority opinion. In the majority’s view, the act only imposes liability when there is a strong inference that a state intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race. Under the act, “a minority voter is entitled to nothing less and nothing more,” Alito wrote. They added the act should not intrude on states’ prerogative to draw districts based on nonracial factors, including to achieve partisan advantage. Because the plaintiffs failed to show sufficient evidence of intentional discrimination and instead relied on “historical evidence and evidence that failed to disentangle race from politics,” the lower court’s decision was affirmed and the case was remanded. In dissent Justice Elena Kagan wrote that under this new precedent, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power. She explained that states still facing residential segregation, political division and other effects of long histories of racial discrimination, can split any minority community that is cohesive in its geography and politics so that it loses all electoral influence. “Members of the racial minority can still go to the polls and cast a ballot. But given the state’s racially polarized voting, they cannot hope — in the way the state’s white citizens can — to elect a person whom they think will well represent their interests,” Kagan wrote. “Their votes matter less than others do; they translate into less political voice,” she added. Kagan was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. They criticized the court’s actions over the past decade as slowly chipping away at the Voting Rights Act, allowing a flood of discriminatory voting laws to follow.
Alaska: The League of Women Voters of Alaska, and the Alaska Black Caucus filed a lawsuit against the Alaska Division of Elections challenging the decision to share Alaska’s voter rolls with the U.S. Department of Justice as unconstitutional. The lawsuit filed on April 22 charges the division with violating the right to privacy enshrined in the Alaska Constitution when officials complied with a Department of Justice’s request and turned over a copy of Alaska’s voter rolls, as well as signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to remove voters the federal government identifies as ineligible. The lawsuit names Lieutenant Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and Carol Beecher, director of the Division of Elections, in their official state capacities. The lawsuit highlights that the Department of Justice is sharing voter information with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to search for noncitizens and to compile a national database.The lawsuit alleges that is in order to “conduct criminal and immigration investigations.” Plaintiffs argue the state’s agreement to remove voters the federal government has found to be ineligible and resubmit an updated list to DOJ within 45 days violates constitutional due process rights. They argue that “by giving DOJ the power to select which Alaskans have the right to vote and by obligating Defendants to purge voters from the voter list without any stated basis in law or process to challenge such an action.”
Arizona: The Arizona Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit from conservative groups that challenged how Arizona counties verify early ballot signatures and run ballot drop-boxes, among other things. Brought by the America First Legal Foundation and the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona on behalf of a group of voters, the lawsuit rehashed numerous claims that election deniers have made unsuccessfully in court for years. The conservative groups argued that Maricopa, Yavapai and Coconino counties illegally used unstaffed ballot drop boxes, canceled voter registrations and used improper procedures to verify voter signatures on vote-by-mail ballot envelopes. In a unanimous decision written by Judge Anni Hill Foster, and joined by Judge David Gass and Chief Judge Randall Howe, Foster wrote that America First Legal lacked standing to bring the lawsuit because it did not allege that any Arizonans had been denied the right to vote, nor did it contest the results of an election. The plaintiffs merely “disagree with Yavapai County’s election practices,” Foster wrote. The lawsuit heavily cites Republican Kari Lake’s failed attempts to overturn the results of the 2022 election for Arizona governor that she lost to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. “Election day on November 8, 2022 in Maricopa County was marred by ‘widespread failures’ and ‘technical problems’ that led to ‘the anger and frustration of voters who were subjected to inconvenience and confusion at voter centers’” Rogers wrote, quoting Lake’s lawsuit. Judges at the trial and appeals courts, as well as the Arizona Supreme Court, roundly rejected Lake’s arguments that the courts should overturn the results of the 2022 election and declare her the governor. The appeals court declined to consider Rogers’s arguments about ballot printer failures in Yavapai County, which he claimed were similar to those in Maricopa County. In her trial, attorneys for Lake failed to prove that long lines caused by ballot printer issues prevented anyone from casting a ballot, but Rogers repeated the claim anyway.
U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Arizona over the state’s refusal to turn over an unredacted version of its voter roll, finding that the state isn’t required by federal law to provide it. Brnovich’s ruling comes after President Donald Trump’s administration sued Arizona last year, alleging that the state was interfering with the federal government’s ability to exercise oversight and enforce federal election laws. It sought to compel the state to hand over its full, unredacted voter list, which includes sensitive information such as voters’ full birthdates and Social Security numbers. Brnovich, like other federal judges in Michigan, Oregon, California, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, said that none of the three laws that federal prosecutors used to justify their request — the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act — required the disclosure of the data.
California: The legal dispute between Kings County and the City of Avenal continued this week after an appeals court ordered that ballots in the city’s recall election be sealed and not counted while the court reviews the election’s legality. Under the ruling issued this week, the Kings County Registrar of Voters may not certify the results as the court considers the city’s argument that the recall election is unlawful. Despite the order halting the count, voting in the recall election is still ongoing. Avenal City Manager Antony Lopez said the city is waiting for further direction from the appellate court. Lopez said the city has maintained from the start that it did not authorize the recall election. “Since the beginning, we’ve said and we hold the position that we never approved for this recall and never sanctioned and never delegated to Kings County, hence the election is illegal,” he said. Kings County has previously stated that recall proponents met all legal requirements and that it is the county’s responsibility to administer the process in accordance with state law. County officials have also said they do not take sides in the outcome of the election.
Colorado: A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals will not take a second crack at Tina Peters’ appeal despite a request from her attorney asking for more consideration of some of their arguments. Peters’ attorneys requested the rehearing on April 16, two weeks after the Court of Appeals ordered a re-sentencing for the former Mesa County Clerk on the grounds that the trial judge, 21st Judicial District Court Judge Matthew Barrett, had improperly considered Peters’ public comments and may have violated her First Amendment right to free speech. On April 23, the Court of Appeals rejected that rehearing request. In their request for a rehearing, Peters’ attorneys argued that the Court of Appeals “misapprehended” their arguments on the supremacy clause. Peters has long maintained that she was acting in a federal capacity when she permitted unauthorized access to county voting equipment and, therefore, should be immune from state charges. Thus far, no court has sided with Peters’ claims. Peters plans to appeal a recently-denied rehearing request to the Colorado Supreme Court, her lawyer told Colorado Newsline April 24.
U.S. District Court of Colorado Judge Philip Brimmer shut down an effort by the Colorado Republican Party to block unaffiliated voters from participating in the party’s June primary election. The decision is the latest action in a years-long legal battle in which the Republican Party challenged state laws enacted as a result of Proposition 108, a 2016 ballot measure that allows voters not registered with a political party to vote in partisan primary elections. In March, Brimmer ruled that the requirement for a party to opt out of primary elections — a 75% vote of the party’s central committee — is unconstitutionally high. The deadline for the party to opt out of the 2026 primary election was Oct. 1, 2025. Attorneys for the Republican Party said because Brimmer’s ruling came after the deadline, the court should block unaffiliated voters from participating in the primary. Neither the Colorado Legislature nor the Colorado secretary of state’s office have established a new mechanism for parties to opt out of the primaries since that ruling, Brimmer said in his decision denying the GOP’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. Granting the motion would go beyond the scope of his March order, Brimmer said, and would violate the Purcell principle, which says courts should not change election rules too close to an election to avoid confusion for voters and election officials.
Hawai’i: A Ninth Circuit panel said this week that Hawai’i is not required to publicly disclose voter registration data, ruling against a conservative election integrity foundation’s efforts for a list of the Aloha State’s registered voters. The Public Interest Legal Foundation claimed that Hawai’i’s Chief Election Officer Scott Nago violated the National Voter Registration Act by refusing to hand over the state’s voter roll to the foundation. But a statewide voter list is not a record that concerns the implementation of programs that ensure the accuracy of lists of eligible voters under the act, U.S. Circuit Judge Michelle Friedland. “Covered ‘records’ are those about efforts to ensure the accuracy of voter lists, not voter lists themselves,” Friedland wrote. “NVRA is not a sprawling voter-data-preservation mandate; it is a transparency provision targeted at list-maintenance activities.” Friedland, an Obama appointee, was joined on the panel by U.S. Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown, a Bill Clinton appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge Jennifer Sung, a Joe Biden appointee.
Michigan: The Michigan Court of Claims dismissed a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. The lawsuit, dismissed with prejudice on Wednesday, April 22, alleged that state election law and guidance from Benson’s office violated the Michigan Constitution by allowing non-Michigan residents to vote. It references individuals who haven’t lived in the state but are the spouses of military and overseas Michigan voters and children born to residents. Michigan’s election law now allows both spouses and dependents of an overseas voter to apply for an absentee ballot if they’re a citizen of the U.S. accompanying that overseas voter and if they’re not registered to vote anywhere else in the U.S. Benson’s election officials manual says U.S. citizens who have never lived in the country can vote in Michigan if they have a parent, legal guardian, or spouse who last lived there. They also must not be registered or have voted in another state. In response to the lawsuit’s dismissal, Benson — also running as a Democrat for governor — wrote in a statement that the decision is a “victory for military service members, their families and the rule of law.” “It’s a defeat for this disgraceful, coordinated attack against eligible Michigan voters and our secure election process,” she said. “Every U.S. citizen has the Constitutional right to freely vote in every election – and we should all share a basic, nonpartisan commitment to making that right real for every American citizen.”
North Carolina: The North Carolina NAACP is appealing a lawsuit it lost earlier this year, in a case seeking to have North Carolina’s voter photo identification law ruled unconstitutional. Federal District Court Judge Loretta Biggs wrote that she personally believed the NAACP was correct that the new version of the law still discriminates against minority voters — but that she felt she had to rule against the NAACP anyway, due to previous federal appellate rulings. The NAACP is testing that with its appeal, which will take the case to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and, perhaps, later to the U.S. Supreme Court. “We will continue the fight against illegal discrimination and to ensure voters know their rights and know that they are protected in exercising them,” N.C. NAACP President Deborah Dicks Maxwell said in a statement after the initial ruling.
Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled this week that spreadsheets of raw data associated with every ballot are public records, providing access to the “cast vote records” that had been requested by an election researcher hired by the Trump Administration last year. The Supreme Court said its unanimous decision was a way to “satisfy the voting public that our elections are safe, secure and accurate” while preserving the state constitution’s requirement that votes remain secret. The Lycoming County elections director had denied Heather Honey’s request for digital copies from the 2020 presidential election, saying that would amount to letting her review the contents of a ballot box, one vote at a time. Cast vote records are created when a voter’s choices are made electronically or scanned. Pennsylvania election law provides wide public access to county election records, except for the contents of ballot boxes and voting machines and records of assisted voters. Lycoming Voter Services had argued its scanners and tabulators constitute voting machines and the cast vote records are the contents of ballot boxes. Lycoming elections chief Forrest Lehman said he does not believe the records, which contain randomized data, will reveal any secret ballot information and that he is ready to provide the records upon request. The Supreme Court ruled that the cast vote records “are spreadsheets of raw data pulled from the cast ballots. They are not the physical ballots contained in the ballot box.” Therefore, they are public records, the justices concluded: “This interpretation does not destroy the secrecy of the vote any more than a tally of all votes from a specific election.” The high court said it was only ruling in the Lycoming County matter and said it was possible that other counties do not sufficiently randomize the data. “Whether the Election Code requires disclosure of CVRs that clearly link the contents of a ballot with personally identifying data is not before us,” wrote Justice Daniel McCaffery.
Guillermo Sainz who was accused of orchestrating a fraudulent voter registration scheme ahead of the 2024 presidential election has pleaded guilty. In October 2024, district attorneys in multiple counties announced they had received thousands of voter registration applications that did not appear to be legitimate. Sainz, who was in charge of the operation, pleaded guilty April 27 to three misdemeanor counts of soliciting voter registrations and will face 30 days in jail, along with a $1,000 fine and 11 months probation. Sainz was an organizer for the Arizona-based campaign firm Field+Media Corps, which conducted voter registration drives in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 election. According to criminal complaints filed against Sainz and six street canvassers, canvassers were paid based on how many registration forms they submitted. “The Office of Attorney General determined that the crimes were not motivated by efforts to sway any election or voter rolls for any specific party or candidate,” Attorney General Dave Sunday’s office said in a statement. “Rather, the charged defendants were motivated to maintain employment and income by reaching quotas.”
Texas: A North Texas appeals court rejected a petition from a Dallas County republican trying to force the county to hold a precinct-specific Election Day for the upcoming primary election. The petition came after former county GOP Chair Allen West agreed to countywide voting for upcoming runoffs — in the wake of a chaotic March election marred by confusion and legal challenges. The filing from petitioner Barry Wernick, a Republican Party precinct chair and commissioners court candidate, requested the Dallas-based Fifth Court of Appeals order the county elections administrator to conduct the upcoming runoff Election Day with precinct-based polling places. The judges declined April 24, finding they had no jurisdiction to do so. They also found Wernick had no standing for relief, in part because he won his primary race outright and wasn’t in a runoff. He also was not a party to the election services agreement between the GOP’s County Executive Committee and the county, the court said, calling Wernick “a stranger to the contract.” “(Wernick) is a party precinct chair and, therefore, a member of the CEC. He also serves as a chair of a committee of the CEC,” Friday’s opinion said. “But he is not the county executive committee, nor is he chair of the CEC.” The court did not weigh in on the merits of the challenge itself — namely, whether the contract to go back to countywide voting between the county and the GOP under West was valid.
U.S. Virgin Islands: A federal lawsuit over how primary elections are administered in the territory ended April 23 in a mediated settlement, resolving a dispute between the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands and the Election System of the Virgin Islands over coordination of the party’s candidate certification process ahead of the August 1 primary. The agreement, reached after roughly two and a half hours of mediation before Magistrate Judge Emile Henderson III at District Court on St. Croix, sets out a coordinated timeline under which the Elections System and the Democratic Party will each carry out their respective roles in preparing for the primary. The lawsuit, filed April 9, named the Elections System of the Virgin Islands, Board of Elections Chair Raymond Williams, and Supervisor of Elections Caroline Fawkes as defendants. In its complaint, the party argued that its First Amendment rights were being infringed after election officials moved forward with their own procedures for the 2026 primary without implementing a party-adopted plan. Under the agreement, the Elections System will continue to administer the primary in accordance with Virgin Islands law, while the Democratic Party retains control over its internal vetting and certification of candidates. The timeline calls for election officials to provide a list of candidates who submit nomination petitions by May 19, notify the party of those who qualify by May 25, and for the party to submit its certified slate by May 27. Candidates who pass both processes — party screening and statutory eligibility — will appear on the ballot. The Elections System will conduct the primary in accordance with Virgin Islands law. The parties have 10 days to file a joint stipulation of dismissal. Henderson thanked the participants for their “hard work and diligence” in reaching an agreement. The parties then moved to Molloy’s courtroom, where Lynch withdrew his motion for a preliminary injunction, and Molloy found the motion moot. Members of the Board of Elections have challenged the settlement.
Virginia: Virginia’s Supreme Court denied a request for an emergency stay of a Tazewell County judge’s ruling that said the State Board of Elections cannot certify the results of Virginia’s redistricting referendum. Democrats had requested the emergency stay, which could have allowed the elections board to move forward with certifying the results while a Republican-backed appeal to block the redistricting played out. The Supreme Court’s action addressed only the request for an emergency stay, not the appeal itself. Virginia’s Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether Democratic lawmakers followed the rules for getting a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot.
West Virginia: Secretary of State, Kris Warner, is asking a federal judge to toss U.S. government demands for unredacted voter registration data. The Department of Justice moved earlier this month to compel West Virginia officials to release the list that would include state voters’ information like birth dates, residential addresses, drivers license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. “This same story is playing out in dozens of States across the country. The United States asks a State to turn over unredacted voter lists; the State refuses; the Government sues. But the Government’s suits have not been successful,” wrote lawyers for West Virginia’s Secretary of State in a memorandum. “At least five federal courts have dismissed complaints nearly identical to this one.” The West Virginia Secretary of State is being represented by counsel from the state Attorney General’s Office, including Michael Williams, the solicitor general. The federal judge assigned to the case is Thomas Johnston, a George W. Bush appointee. “Though DOJ initially claimed the list-maintenance-review purpose, it seems the Government now wants to use the voter list for immigration enforcement reasons,” wrote lawyers for the Secretary of State. “Demanding unredacted voter lists for this use would be outside the Civil Rights Act’s purview.” Moreover, attorneys for the state maintain that the voter lists are internally created databases exempt from federal production requirements and that disclosure would violate state and federal privacy laws.
Michael H. Drucker
