United States v. Simon

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 has dismissed the case.

Now, on behalf of 16 local election officials and 10 local governments, Public Rights Project has filed an amicus brief urging the Eighth Circuit of Appeals to affirm the dismissal of the DOJ’s case in Minnesota. We’ve also filed similar briefs in the First, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals to defend local authority in California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

The brief explains why the DOJ’s demand fails to satisfy the Civil Rights Act’s requirements for a proper purpose and sufficient basis, and why courts must review expansive federal requests for sensitive election records. It also highlights the burdens these demands place on local election officials and how they are unlawful. These include:

• 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 pressuring election officials to use a federal database that is proven unreliable — and threatening prosecution if they don’t.
• The DOJ is required to provide an adequate basis and proper purpose to demand sensitive voter data. Instead, its sweeping request amounts to a fishing expedition rather than a targeted inquiry into Minnesota’s list maintenance program.
• Minnesota has met its list maintenance requirements under the National Voter Registration Act.

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

Read the amicus brief.