A major effort by the Department of Justice to acquire the unredacted personal data of nearly 23 million California voters was struck down in federal court Thursday, with a judge characterizing the government’s request as an illegal “fishing expedition” that threatened the foundation of American democracy.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter granted a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the United States against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. The ruling marks a significant victory for state officials and civil rights groups who argued that handing over sensitive voter information—including Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and voting histories—would violate privacy laws and suppress voter participation.
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The dispute began in July 2025, when the DOJ demanded California’s full, unredacted statewide voter registration list. Federal attorneys argued the data was necessary to enforce the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), specifically to check for list maintenance compliance and ineligible voters. When California offered to provide the lists only with sensitive data redacted—as per state law—the DOJ sued.
In a blistering 33-page order, Judge Carter rejected the federal government’s arguments, ruling that the statutes cited by the DOJ were enacted to protect voting rights, not to authorize the Executive Branch to amass a centralized database of private citizen information.
“The Department of Justice seeks to use civil rights legislation which was enacted for an entirely different purpose to amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data,” Judge Carter wrote. “This effort goes far beyond what Congress intended.”
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The court sided with arguments presented by the state and intervenors, including the NAACP and the League of Women Voters, who warned that the DOJ’s actions would disproportionately harm minority communities. The order noted that the centralization of such sensitive data could create a “chilling effect,” causing citizens—particularly naturalized immigrants and political minorities—to deregister or avoid voting out of fear of how their information might be used.
Judge Carter pointed to a pattern of similar DOJ lawsuits filed against nearly two dozen other states, suggesting the government’s stated goal of “list maintenance” appeared to be a pretext for a broader data collection effort. The court referenced evidence suggesting the data might be utilized for cross-referencing with federal immigration databases or other unauthorized surveillance measures.
“The Court is not required to accept pretextual, formalistic explanations untethered to the reality of what the government has said outside of the courtroom,” the order stated.
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The ruling further determined that the DOJ’s request violated several federal privacy statutes, including the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act. Judge Carter emphasized that while the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate elections, it has never authorized the creation of a national voter registry housed within the Executive Branch.
“The erosion of privacy and rolling back of voting rights is a decision for open and public debate within the Legislative Branch, not the Executive,” Carter concluded, invoking Benjamin Franklin’s famous warning about the fragility of the republic.
The dismissal ends the DOJ’s current bid to force California to turn over its unredacted records, affirming the state’s right to shield the personal identifiers of its electorate.
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