The Justice Department has expanded its legal effort to obtain detailed voter information, filing suits against four more states — Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Nevada — bringing the total number of states sued to 18. The department also sued Fulton County, Ga., seeking ballots and related records from the 2020 election.
For months the DOJ has demanded full, unredacted voter registration lists from multiple jurisdictions, including driver’s license numbers and portions of Social Security numbers. The department says the data are necessary to verify compliance with federal laws that require accurate voter rolls. Most states have refused, citing voter privacy protections.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said the department will not allow states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by declining to follow federal election laws. The DOJ has also pointed to recent use of a citizenship lookup tool housed at the Department of Homeland Security as part of its review of voter records.
The Fulton County lawsuit seeks all ballots and related records from the 2020 election that Donald Trump lost in Georgia. Fulton County has been the focus of repeated, unsubstantiated claims by Trump and his allies alleging fraud in the 2020 results. The DOJ action follows the recent dismissal of a high-profile election-interference case brought by Fulton County prosecutors.
Colorado officials pushed back strongly. Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat and candidate for attorney general, said she will not hand over Coloradans’ sensitive voting information and vowed to defend the state in court. The DOJ’s suit against Colorado comes days after former President Trump announced a pardon for Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk serving a nine-year sentence for granting unauthorized access to voting equipment; that pardon appears largely symbolic because her conviction was at the state level and gubernatorial authority governs state pardons.
The Justice Department has also opened a review of conditions in Colorado prisons. With reporting by NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang and Benjamin Swasey.