A federal judge dismissed the Department of Justice's lawsuit against West Virginia over the state's refusal to turn over unredacted voter registration records, including driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, ruling that the DOJ's demand lacked "any factual basis."
U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston filed a 16-page order siding with West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner, who had argued that state law bars disclosing sensitive personal information without clear legal authority compelling its release. The ruling marks the latest in a growing string of courtroom defeats for the DOJ's campaign to pry open voter rolls across the country.
The dismissal matters beyond West Virginia. The federal government has sued more than 30 states and Washington, D.C., for refusing to comply with demands for voter registration data. Thirteen of those lawsuits have now been dismissed, according to a Brennan Center tracker. The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division had argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 gives the attorney general authority "to demand the production, inspection, and analysis of statewide voter registration lists that can be cross-checked effectively for improper registrations." On that basis, the department filed suit against West Virginia and four other states in February.
Judge Johnston was unpersuaded. His order stated plainly that the DOJ never showed West Virginia had done anything wrong, or even raised a suspicion that it had.
"The demand includes no indication that West Virginia is suspected to be noncompliant with the list maintenance requirements of [the Help America Vote Act] or the [National Voter Registration Act], nor does it point to any anomalies in West Virginia's voter registration data."
The judge went further, noting a telling gap in the DOJ's own language. The department's demand letter used the word "purpose" but never used the word "basis", and never offered any equivalent explanation for why the records were necessary.
In other words, the DOJ told West Virginia what it wanted to do with the data. It never explained why it had reason to believe anything was wrong in the first place.
Secretary of State Warner framed the ruling as vindication, not just for his office, but for the state's election workers and the voters whose personal information was at stake.
"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. 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."
Warner took care to note that his objection was never about the broader goal of election integrity. His dispute was narrower and more specific, about the method the DOJ chose to pursue it.
"Our disagreement has never been with that goal, but with the means sought in this instance, which would have required the disclosure of sensitive personal information in a manner prohibited by West Virginia law."
That distinction matters. Warner did not position himself as hostile to verifying voter rolls. He positioned himself as a state official bound by state law, law that the DOJ apparently expected him to ignore without providing legal grounds to do so.
West Virginia's case is not an outlier. Federal judges across the country have reached similar conclusions when the DOJ has pressed states for unredacted voter registration lists.
In Michigan, U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou, a Trump appointee, rejected the administration's lawsuit seeking the state's voter rolls. Judge Jarbou ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 applies to voter applications, not registration lists. Her opinion included a pointed observation: "The court is not a telepathic time-traveler" and therefore "cannot rewrite Congressional legislation to cover a situation that Congress may not have foreseen."
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said the decision "affirms that the law is on our side." Whatever one thinks of Benson's politics, the legal reasoning in Michigan echoed Judge Johnston's in West Virginia: the DOJ cited a statute that does not clearly authorize what the department was demanding.
The pattern extends to other states as well. A federal judge in California dismissed a similar DOJ bid for unredacted voter rolls, ruling the legal basis was flawed. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport called the DOJ's request for voters' personal information, including driver's license numbers and Social Security numbers, "baseless." Courts have questioned the department's statutory authority or rejected suits on procedural grounds across multiple rulings.
Federal courts have been active on a range of politically charged questions in recent months. A separate federal ruling blocked anti-DEI grant conditions for West Coast municipalities, while another judge ordered the DOJ to take action on unrelated transparency matters.
At the heart of every one of these cases sits the same question: Does the Civil Rights Act of 1960 actually give the attorney general the power to compel states to hand over complete voter registration databases, including sensitive personal identifiers?
The DOJ says yes. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has argued that state election officials "are choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work." That framing casts noncompliant states as obstructionists hiding something.
But the judges who have examined the statute keep arriving at the same answer: the law doesn't say what the DOJ claims it says. Judge Johnston found no factual basis for the demand. Judge Jarbou found the statute covers voter applications, not registration lists. Other courts have questioned both the legal authority and the procedural footing.
When more than a dozen federal judges dismiss the same type of lawsuit, the problem is not a run of bad luck. The problem is the legal theory itself. Courts have been willing to side with the DOJ when the law supports it, as seen when the Fifth Circuit handed the department a major win on a different issue. But on voter data, the department keeps swinging and missing.
None of this means voter roll accuracy is unimportant. It is. Outdated registrations, duplicate entries, and records of deceased voters are real problems that undermine confidence in elections. Conservatives have been right to push for cleaner rolls and stronger verification.
But the vehicle matters as much as the destination. Demanding that states hand over driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, without identifying a single anomaly or compliance failure, is not election integrity enforcement. It is a fishing expedition dressed up in statutory language that federal courts keep rejecting.
A recent ruling involving DOJ transparency showed that courts will compel the department to act when the legal footing is solid. The voter-data lawsuits have not met that standard.
West Virginia did not refuse to maintain its voter rolls. It refused to ship unredacted personal data to Washington without a legal obligation to do so. Judge Johnston agreed. So have judges in Michigan, California, and elsewhere.
The DOJ filed suits against more than 30 states. Thirteen have been dismissed. The department has not explained what specific problem it found, or even suspected, in any of the states it sued. That silence is not a sign of strength. It is the sound of a legal strategy running on fumes.
Secretary Warner put it simply: his office's disagreement was never about the goal of accurate elections. It was about a demand that required violating state law protecting voters' personal information, a demand made without evidence that anything was wrong.
State officials who push back on overreach in the courts are not enemies of election integrity. They are doing exactly what federalism is designed to do: forcing the central government to prove its case before it can override state law.
The DOJ has not said whether it will appeal the West Virginia dismissal or refile. The order does not specify whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice, a detail that would determine whether the department can try again on different grounds.
Meanwhile, the remaining lawsuits against other states are still working through the courts. If the pattern holds, more dismissals are coming. Each one will reinforce the same message: the DOJ needs a statute that actually authorizes what it is asking for, or it needs to stop asking.
Election integrity is too important to pursue with the wrong legal tools. If the DOJ wants voter data, it should ask Congress for clear authority, not keep dragging states into court on a theory that judge after judge has found hollow.
Thirteen dismissed lawsuits is not a winning streak. It is a sign that someone in Washington should have read the statute before filing the paperwork.