Donald Trump has suffered another major courtroom defeat in his push to obtain voter registration data from states across the country.
A federal judge in New York has rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to force the state to hand over its unredacted voter rolls, marking the 12th consecutive loss for the Trump administration in its nationwide effort to access sensitive voter information.
U.S. District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit on July 10, ruling that the administration failed to provide a valid legal basis or purpose for demanding the records.
The judge said the Justice Department was not entitled to obtain New York’s voter rolls, which contain sensitive personal information about registered voters.
“The government’s claim fails at the outset for an even more fundamental reason,” D’Agostino wrote, concluding that the federal government was “simply not entitled” to the complete voter registration lists it was seeking.
The ruling is another setback for President Donald Trump’s broader campaign to expand federal access to state election data, an effort that voting rights advocates have warned could threaten voter privacy and intimidate eligible voters.
D’Agostino also rejected the DOJ’s argument that federal election laws — including the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act — gave it authority to obtain the records.
Her decision follows a growing list of defeats for the administration. The judge noted that six other federal trial courts have reached similar conclusions, finding that state voter registration lists are created and maintained by state officials and are not federal records subject to government retention requirements.
The New York ruling means the DOJ has now lost all 12 cases that have reached decisions on the merits in its attempt to obtain voter rolls, including a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The administration has continued pursuing the cases through appeals, with disputes in California and Oregon currently awaiting decisions from the Ninth Circuit after oral arguments were held in May.
The legal battle stems from the Justice Department’s effort to collect voter registration information from states nationwide. The administration has argued that the data is needed to enforce federal election laws, while critics say the effort represents an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to gain access to massive amounts of voter information.
For now, courts have repeatedly rejected the administration’s arguments.
And in New York, the answer from the federal judiciary was the same as in the cases before it: the Trump administration cannot simply demand access to state voter rolls because it wants them.
