— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) June 5, 2026 Federal law does require states to maintain accurate voter rolls and allows people in most states to register to vote at their respective departments of motor vehicles. The Justice Department has access to versions of state's voter information for purposes of enforcement of Civil Rights-related laws and can receive access during criminal investigations, but many states have privacy laws that limit or even outright prohibit the sharing of private information. On July 10, 2025, the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division demanded that California Secretary of State Shirley Weber turn over an electronic, unredacted copy of the state's voter registration list within 14 days citing the need to ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. "[T]he Attorney General is uniquely charged by Congress with the enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which were designed by Congress to ensure that states have proper and effective voter registration and voter list maintenance programs," argued the Justice Department in a press release about the nationwide lawsuits seeking voter information. "The Attorney General also has the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) at her disposal to demand the production, inspection, and analysis of the statewide voter registration lists." On Aug. 8, 2025, Secretary Weber made California's voter registration list available for inspection at her office in Sacramento with some private information, including driver's license numbers and social security numbers, redacted citing the need to comply with state and federal privacy laws. The Department of Justice renewed its call for a full, unredacted voter registration list on Aug. 13 within seven days and threatened legal action detailed January's dismissal of their requests. In response letters sent by the Trump Administration on Aug. 21, Aug. 29, and Sep. 12, Secretary of State Weber shared that the the redacted voter information was still available for review in Sacramento, provided a full list of election officials responsible for maintaining the list, and noted that requests for identical information from multiple other states indicated that the federal law enforcement agency's request was not made in good faith noted January's dismissal. "These nationwide efforts point at a larger pattern than the DOJ's stated purpose—one that involves collecting sensitive, personally identifying information of nearly every voter in America on an unprecedented scale and then utilizing that information in a completely different context than what the information was provided for," noted Judge Carter in his dismissal. On Sep. 25, 2025, the Department of Justice sued the state of California for access to unredacted statewide voter information. "[T]he States are merely an "agent" for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them," argued President Trump in a Truth Social post on Aug. 18, 2025. "Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS. I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS. THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!!" California wasn't the only state sued by the Trump Administration for withholding private voter information, often in compliance with state and federal privacy laws, from the Justice Department. "This Department of Justice has now sued 23 states for failing to provide voter roll data and will continue filing lawsuits to protect American elections," stated U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a press release earlier this year. "Accurate voter rolls are the foundation of election integrity, and any state that fails to meet this basic obligation of transparency can expect to see us in court." In October, a class action lawsuit, League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, filed in federal court in Washington D.C., sought to halt the requests for voter information as well as the use of an existing federal database to purge state voter rolls. The database, known as the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, is a decades-old tool for state and federal agencies to verify citizenship status for people looking to access government programs or licenses. The League of Women Voters suit alleged that the recent demands for state voter rolls was intended to create a federal database of all registered voters nationwide.