A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the Justice Department's attempt to obtain Michigan's full voter registration list, which includes birth dates, driver's license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers for everyone on it. In a 2-1 decision, the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 1960 civil rights law doesn't give the federal government the authority to demand that kind of confidential data. In a defeat for the Trump administration, Judge Andre Mathis wrote that the law was designed to protect access to the ballot, not to police whether "some people have not voted," CBS News reports.
The decision upholds a lower-court ruling by US District Judge Hala Jarbou—a Trump appointee—who warned that forcing disclosure of such information could burden First Amendment voting rights. Michigan's secretary of state had supplied a public version of the rolls but refused to turn over sensitive details, joining more than 30 states and the District of Columbia in resisting similar requests. So far, nine district courts have tossed related DOJ suits as Trump's broader election changes continue to face legal pushback.
Per the AP and the Brennan Center for Justice, at least 13 states have either provided or promised to provide their voter registration lists to the federal government: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.
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