Michigan court rejects DOJ bid for unredacted voter rolls

The Justice Department could not force Michigan to hand over its full, unredacted voter-registration file, including birth dates, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled 2-1 that federal law did not give the department the authority to demand the sensitive records. Judge Andre Mathis wrote for the majority, joined by Judge R. Guy Cole Jr., while Judge John Nalbandian dissented. The ruling upheld U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou’s February decision in the Western District of Michigan, where she found that the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act did not authorize the request.

The case turned on whether Washington could use federal statutes to compel states to turn over data that states collect and maintain themselves. The majority concluded Michigan’s voter file was created and maintained by the state, not a record the state had simply come into possession of from voters, narrowing the reach of the federal law the Justice Department invoked. The court also noted the Civil Rights Act provision at issue came from an era when Southern states were destroying Black Americans’ registration records to conceal disenfranchisement, history that cut against the department’s attempt to use the law in the opposite direction.

Michigan officials said the state would provide only the public voter-registration list available to anyone, not the private fields the department wanted. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said the federal government should receive only that public list, while Attorney General Dana Nessel called the suit an unlawful attempt to intimidate state officials into turning over private voter information. Michigan argued the demand went beyond checking whether states were removing ineligible voters and could help build a national voter file or even be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to search for noncitizen registrations.

The Justice Department began sending letters in 2025 to election officials in nearly all 50 states seeking voter lists with sensitive identifying information. At least 17 Republican-led states shared data voluntarily, while the department sued 30 states and the District of Columbia. The Michigan loss was the department’s tenth defeat in those cases, after nine district court rulings went against it. It was also the first appellate ruling in the series, and because Kentucky sits in the same circuit, the decision now sets binding precedent for the department’s pending case there.