Overview
- A federal judge in Utah dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit that sought the state’s full, unredacted voter database.
- Judge David Barlow ruled the Civil Rights Act’s Title III does not make the statewide voter list a record that the lieutenant governor must produce for DOJ inspection.
- Utah’s lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, had refused the request citing state privacy laws and the database’s inclusion of addresses, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers.
- The Justice Department has separately disclosed an active investigation into Henderson for refusing to hand over the data and could pursue an appeal or other enforcement steps.
- The case is one example of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to obtain state voter rolls and follows a string of similar federal actions and legal defeats in other states.