United States v. Bellows

Since 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has demanded that states turn over sensitive voter information, including Social Security and driver’s license numbers. Most states have refused. So far, every federal court to hear the DOJ’s argument — 23 in total — has dismissed the case.

Now, on behalf of three local governments and 19 election officials, Public Rights Project has filed an amicus brief urging the First Circuit of Appeals to affirm the dismissal of the DOJ’s case in Maine. We’ve also filed similar briefs in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin to defend local authority in elections.

The brief explains that state and local governments have authority over election administration, which includes protecting voter privacy. It argues that courts should be able to review requests for sensitive voter records like these and explains why the DOJ’s attempts to access voter records are both unlawful and burdensome:

• Surges in public record requests, including ones from the DOJ, place an unnecessary burden on local election officials and threaten to impede their ability to run an election. 
• The DOJ is required to provide an adequate basis to demand records that include sensitive voter data. Instead, it cited survey data that local election officials fill out. This data doesn’t measure list maintenance compliance and isn’t an adequate basis for the demands.
• Maine has met its list maintenance requirements under the National Voter Registration Act, including through routine local election official duties.

The DOJ has increasingly tried to interfere with state and local administration of voter rolls, including attempts to pool voter data from all states into a database and create a federal list of mail ballot recipients. Not only are these attempts unlawful, but they’re also poorly executed. The database created by the federal government is unreliable, incorrectly flags voters as potentially ineligible, and creates significant burdens for local election officials in states that have used it.

For these reasons, we urge the court to affirm the dismissal. 

Read the amicus brief.