Federal Judge Dismisses DOJ Lawsuit Seeking Minnesota’s Unredacted Voter Rolls

A federal judge has dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking Minnesota’s complete voter registration database, ruling that neither the Civil Rights Act of 1960 nor the Help America Vote Act requires the state to turn over the unredacted records.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez issued the ruling Monday, denying the federal government’s request to compel Minnesota and Secretary of State Steve Simon to provide the statewide voter registration list. The Justice Department had sought information including voters’ full names, dates of birth, residential addresses, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and full state driver’s license numbers.

Minnesota law requires the secretary of state to maintain a centralized voter registration system. A separate public information list may include names, addresses, years of birth, and voting histories, but state law excludes sensitive information including Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and full dates of birth from the publicly available version.

DOJ argued that Title III of the Civil Rights Act gave the Attorney General authority to demand the complete records. The department also claimed access to the database was necessary to evaluate whether Minnesota was complying with voter list maintenance requirements under the Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA.

Title III requires election officials to preserve certain voting and registration records and allows the Attorney General to demand access to covered materials. The dispute centered on which records Congress placed within that authority.

The law refers to records that “come into” an election official’s possession. Menendez concluded that the wording covers records officials receive, including materials submitted during registration, rather than a statewide database election officials create and continually maintain. The judge also noted that federal election law requires states to regularly update voter databases, making the government’s broader reading difficult to reconcile with those requirements.

The government’s HAVA claim failed for a different reason. HAVA requires states to establish and maintain computerized statewide voter registration lists and sets rules for keeping those lists accurate. Menendez found that the statute does not require states to disclose their complete databases to the federal government.

DOJ also had not alleged facts showing Minnesota violated HAVA’s voter list maintenance requirements. The department argued that it needed the records to determine whether violations existed, but the court rejected an approach that would allow the government to file an enforcement case and then use discovery to search for the violation supporting it.

The dispute began in June 2025, when DOJ asked Minnesota about its voter registration procedures and requested the statewide list. Minnesota answered most of the department’s questions but refused to provide the complete database, arguing that DOJ had not established legal authority to obtain the sensitive information it contained.

The Justice Department later renewed its demand and cited a criminal case involving a noncitizen accused of voting in Minnesota’s 2024 election as an additional reason to review the database. Menendez did not decide whether that later explanation satisfied the Civil Rights Act’s requirement that a records demand state its basis and purpose because she found the statewide list was not covered by the statute.

Minnesota is one of more than two dozen states sued by the federal government over similar demands. Menendez noted that courts in more than 20 jurisdictions have dismissed comparable claims seeking unredacted statewide voter registration lists.

Her order granted motions to dismiss filed by Minnesota and groups that had intervened in the case, denied DOJ’s motion to compel production of the records, and dismissed the action. The court directed that judgment be entered accordingly.