Judge tosses DOJ petition for Oregon voter data

What happened

A federal judge in Oregon on Monday rejected a Trump administration lawsuit seeking to compel the state to turn over its unredacted voter files. U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai dismissed the case after a hearing on “the basis and the purpose” of the Justice Department’s voter data demands in light of a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Minnesota on Saturday linking its voter rolls to bringing “back law and order” and “an end to the chaos in Minnesota.” State officials called the letter, sent to Gov. Tim Walz (D) shortly after Border Patrol agents shot dead Alex Pretti, a “shakedown” and a “ransom note.”

Who said what

The Justice Department sued at least 23 states, including Oregon and Minnesota, last year after they refused to turn over detailed voter data including birth dates, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Georgia dismissed one such suit on procedural grounds, while a federal judge in California threw out the request as “unprecedented and illegal.”

Almost every state has a “public version of its voter roll,” but traditionally, no one can obtain the “complete, unredacted” version, “not even the Justice Department,” The New York Times said. The Trump administration’s “highly unusual” effort raised alarms “because the Constitution dictates that elections are run mainly by individual states, not the administration in Washington,” and because the effort was “led by Trump allies who long falsely claimed” he won the 2020 election, “raising concerns that the data could be used to cast doubt on future election results.”

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What next?

Kasubhai said he had “great concerns” about the administration’s motives regarding raw voter data but was denying its petition because the Justice Department had failed to state an adequate legal rationale.