Judge Dismisses Justice Department’s Suit Seeking Oregon Voter Rolls

A federal judge in Oregon on Jan. 26 dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department to obtain Oregon’s list of registered voters.

U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, during a videoconference hearing in the case, said he would grant the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case. The Justice Department had filed its lawsuit on Sept. 16, arguing that Oregon’s refusal to provide lists of registered voters violated the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

Oregon, in its motion to dismiss the case, had countered that the department’s request was beyond the scope of the election laws they cited.

The department also sought an order directing the state to provide that list, with each voter’s “full name, date of birth, residential address, and either their state driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.”

“States simply cannot pick and choose which federal laws they will comply with, including our voting laws, which ensure that all American citizens have equal access to the ballot in federal elections,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in a statement on Sept. 16 announcing the lawsuit.

The department’s lawsuit alleged that the ratio between registered voters and the citizen voting age population was unusually high. It also alleged that Oregon’s removal rate of voters from the registration list was lower than the national average, implying that ineligible persons may be on the state’s list.

“American citizens have a right to feel confident in the integrity of our electoral process, and the refusal of certain states to protect their citizens against vote dilution will result in legal consequences,” Dhillon wrote in her statement.

In its motion to dismiss, Oregon said that “the public inspection provision of the [election laws] does not require states to disclose sensitive information when producing a voter file. States may redact personal or sensitive information from a voter file before producing it, and in fact, should do so.”

Oregon also argued that the request violated the Privacy Act of 1974.

“The limited voter lists available under [Oregon law] contain personal information like addresses, phone numbers, party registration, voting participation history, and year of birth,” the Oregon state attorneys said.

“The expanded list demanded by [the United States] contains even more sensitive personal identifying information,” they added. “If [the United States] collects these records through this suit, it will result in a covered collection of records under the Privacy Act,” the attorneys wrote.

Kasubhai did not issue an opinion with his dismissal. An entry on the court docket indicated that Kasubhai remarked in the hearing that he would later issue a “formal opinion providing further detail on the Court’s reasoning.”

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield praised the judge’s action.

“The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place,” Rayfield wrote on social media. “[V]oting laws can’t be used as a backdoor to grab [voters’] personal information,” he added.

Federal courts in several states have dismissed lawsuits filed by the Trump administration seeking similar information. In California and Georgia, federal district judges dismissed lawsuits filed by Dhillon’s office, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, on similar grounds.

The Justice Department could appeal the dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. No appeal has yet been filed.