A federal judge has dismissed a U.S. government lawsuit over demands for unredacted West Virginia voter registration data.
The Department of Justice was asking the federal court to compel West Virginia officials to release the list that would include state voters’ information like birth dates, residential addresses, drivers license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Kris Warner, asked a federal judge to toss the case.
And today, U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston, a George W. Bush appointee, entered an order to dismiss it.
Similar lawsuits have been dismissed by federal judges across the country. So far, federal district courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s suits on the merits in states including California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arizona, Maine, Wisconsin, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire.
Now West Virginia too.
“From the outset, my Office has maintained that West Virginia law prohibits the disclosure of sensitive personal information contained in the statewide voter registration system absent legal authority requiring its release,” Warner said.
“Today’s ruling confirms that our position was well-founded and consistent with both our statutory obligations and our responsibility to protect the personal information of West Virginia’s registered voters.”
The Justice Department has been demanding unredacted voter data from at least 47 states, including West Virginia.
The Department of Justice sought unredacted voter data under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, claiming a need to monitor state compliance with federal election laws.
The requested information includes full names, residential addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
The state argued that the request is legally deficient and that the voter list is a protected, internally created database that is exempt from federal production requirements.
As in the other states, lawyers for West Virginia argue the U.S. Department of Justice request is legally deficient because it lacks a specific factual basis and pursues a pretextual purpose related to immigration enforcement rather than voting rights.
In a footnote, Johnston wrote, “Given the lack of an adequate basis or purpose, one is left to wonder what the real purpose was for the Justice Department to go to the trouble of filing civil actions like this one all around the nation. Troubling though this question is, it is not before the Court at this time.”
Johnston ruled that the federal government failed to provide a necessary factual basis or a valid purpose for its demand, noting that the request lacked evidence of specific wrongdoing.
Moreover, the judge determined that the U.S. Attorney General cannot use broad records requests to conduct “fishing expeditions” into sensitive personal information without a clear connection to protecting individual voting rights.
“Today’s decision by the United States District Court is an important victory for the rule of law, voter privacy, and the dedicated election officials across West Virginia who work every day to ensure the accuracy of our state’s voter registration system,” said Warner, the secretary of state.
“As the Court noted, the Department of Justice’s ‘demand includes no indication that West Virginia is suspected to be noncompliant with the list maintenance requirements of [federal law], nor does it point to any anomalies in West Virginia’s voter registration data.'”