Federal Judge Dismisses DOJ Lawsuit Over Georgia Voter Rolls, 26th Court Loss

The ruling illustrates the legal limits of the Justice Department's campaign to access state voter data, with federal courts consistently finding that state privacy statutes take precedence over...

A federal judge dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking access to Georgia's complete voter rolls on Wednesday, marking the 26th consecutive court defeat for the DOJ in its nationwide effort to obtain detailed voter registration data, according to reporting by the Washington Examiner.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Marie Calvert, appointed to the bench by former President Joe Biden, ruled that federal law does not supersede Georgia's voter privacy protections. The case was brought against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican.

The DOJ lawsuit had sought voters' full birthdates and driver's license numbers, among other identifying information held in Georgia's voter registration database. Georgia law restricts the public release of such fields, and Judge Calvert found those restrictions to be legally valid against the federal request.

The dismissal is part of a broader pattern. According to the Washington Examiner, this ruling represents the 26th time a court has rejected a DOJ attempt to compel state or local election authorities to produce voter roll data in the current campaign. The geographic and partisan spread of those cases is not fully detailed in available reporting; the specific states and presiding judges in each of the other 25 cases are not identified in the source material reviewed by The Congressional Times. The full docket of related cases would be the public record that would establish that breakdown.

The National Voter Registration Act, commonly called the NVRA, requires states to make voter registration records available for public inspection. However, courts have drawn a distinction between general list availability and the disclosure of sensitive personal data fields. Judge Calvert's ruling in the Georgia case applied that distinction to conclude that Georgia's privacy protections for fields such as full birthdates and driver's license numbers remained enforceable.

Secretary Raffensperger's office has not publicly commented on the ruling in documents reviewed for this report. The DOJ has not announced whether it intends to appeal the dismissal in the Georgia case. An appeal would be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which covers Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. No such filing has been confirmed as of the publication of this article.

The DOJ's voter roll litigation campaign began under the current administration. The specific legal authority cited by the department as the basis for each lawsuit, and whether that authority differs across the 26 cases, is not fully detailed in the source material available. The relevant pleadings in each case would be filed in the respective U.S. District courts and constitute the public record that would answer that question.

State election officials from both parties have resisted some of the DOJ's data requests during this campaign, though the precise partisan composition of the 26 defending jurisdictions is not established in the available reporting. The Washington Examiner's coverage of the Georgia case identifies Raffensperger, a Republican, as the named defendant.

The practical effect of the Georgia ruling is that the state's voter file, as maintained by the Secretary of State's office, will not be produced in the form requested by the federal government. Georgia voters' full birthdates and driver's license numbers will remain shielded under state law, as Judge Calvert interpreted it.

What remains unknown is whether the DOJ will seek emergency relief, file an interlocutory appeal, or pursue legislative or regulatory remedies to advance its data access objectives. The public records that would answer those questions are any notice of appeal filed in the Eleventh Circuit, any future congressional testimony by DOJ officials on voter roll policy, and any new rulemaking published in the Federal Register.