Federal judge blocks Justice Department request for Georgia's full voter rolls
A U.S. district judge rejected the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking access to Georgia's complete voter database, citing state privacy law.
In a Wednesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Victoria Marie Calvert dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit aimed at forcing Georgia to hand over its entire voter registration files. The administration had relied on Title III of the Civil Rights Act to demand the records, which contain birthdates, addresses and driver’s license numbers, but the judge concluded that the act does not preempt Georgia’s voter-privacy statutes.
She emphasized that the federal law applies only to public information, not to the confidential data the state safeguards. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the only Republican official to refuse full disclosure, affirmed that he had already provided the publicly available portion and would continue to protect Georgians’ personal information. The ruling marks another setback for the Trump administration’s broader campaign to secure complete voter rolls, with pending cases remaining in Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho and Utah. Raffensperger pledged to uphold both the law and the Constitution in defending voter privacy.
