A Department of Justice lawsuit seeking access to Utah’s private voter information has been dismissed with prejudice in federal court, Utah Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson announced on Friday.
Henderson, who was named in the suit in her official capacity as the state’s chief election officer, said in a social media post: “We appreciate Judge Barlow’s ruling dismissing the Department of Justice’s lawsuit that sought to force us to disclose the private data of every Utah voter.”
What the department wanted
The department sought Utah’s complete, unredacted voter registration list, including voters’ birth dates, driver’s licence numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, according to Gephardt Daily. Henderson had provided the publicly available version but withheld protected information.
The department said it needed the records to assess Utah’s compliance with federal voter registration laws. The demand was part of the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to scrutinise voter eligibility, amid the president’s unsupported claims of widespread noncitizen voting.
A wider pattern of rulings
The dispute escalated in September when the department notified Henderson that she was under investigation over her compliance with federal election laws. A September 4 letter also warned that failing to preserve relevant election records could expose her to civil and criminal sanctions.
Henderson accused the department of baselessly harassing election officials, while the department said the preservation letters were standard litigation practice. To compel disclosure, the department filed suit invoking Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, arguing that it gave the US attorney general authority to demand the statewide list. The dismissal follows an October 9 federal court ruling in a separate case brought by Common Cause and voters, which found that the department’s campaign to consolidate sensitive voter data from 49 states violated voter privacy and intruded on states’ authority over elections.
The Utah dismissal does not end the national debate over voter data, which has played out in courts in multiple states over the past year. In the Common Cause case decided on October 9, a federal court vacated a policy that had removed citizens from voter rolls and warned that it risked disenfranchising many more voters. Election officials in several states have said they will continue to provide publicly available voter information while protecting the private details that state law keeps confidential.
