The Department of Justice has launched a sweeping legal offensive against 29 states and the District of Columbia, alleging they have blocked federal access to voter registration records required for a massive compliance audit.
During a Sunday appearance on “Sunday Morning Futures,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told host Maria Bartiromo that the administration is fighting to enforce transparency under the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
According to Dhillon, the federal government has already processed 60 million records in jurisdictions that cooperated with the Department.
That data sweep reportedly flagged roughly 350,000 deceased individuals who remain on active voter rolls. Additionally, federal officials have referred about 25,000 names to the Department of Homeland Security for further investigation after finding no records of U.S. citizenship for those individuals.
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“States are not in compliance, even those ones who want to,” Dhillon said, noting that the goal is to ensure states are following the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. She emphasized that the investigation is looking specifically into the extent to which ineligible individuals actually cast ballots. “I’m in touch with voting rights activists who are showing me information about people who have voted who are not American citizens,” Dhillon stated. “So the Left told us this never happens and it’s a myth, it definitely happened.”
The legal battle comes on the heels of a March 2025 executive order from President Trump, which directed the Election Assistance Commission to mandate proof of citizenship on federal voter registration forms.
While some states have resisted the DOJ’s requests for data, leading to a wave of lawsuits, the administration has faced early setbacks in the courtroom. Federal judges have ruled against the government in several instances, though Dhillon confirmed the DOJ is moving quickly to challenge those decisions.
“We’re expediting the appeals in these cases,” she told Bartiromo. “There’ll be an appeal in the Ninth Circuit and the Sixth Circuit soon.”
Beyond the broad audits, the DOJ is also zeroing in on specific state-level practices, including a “vouching” law in Minnesota that allows residents to verify the citizenship of other voters.
Dhillon criticized the policy as inconsistent with federal law and confirmed a document request has been sent to Minnesota officials following a recent indictment of a non-citizen for voting.
“That’s crazy and inconsistent with the Help America Vote Act,” Dhillon said, “and we’re not going to rest until we complete this project.”
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