The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday expanded its legal campaign to force states to turn over voter lists containing sensitive personal information, suing six more states that have refused to provide the data, including Maryland.
The Justice Department has now sued officials in more than a dozen states for the voter lists, following a first round of lawsuits filed in September. The lawsuits are aimed at mostly Democratic states that won’t turn over unredacted copies of the lists, which include driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.
For months, the Trump administration has demanded that states provide copies of their voter lists, calling the information necessary for election integrity efforts. While some states have turned over lists that withhold sensitive personal data, most have declined to offer all the information on their lists.
Democratic election officials have raised privacy concerns over how the Trump administration plans to use the data. They are especially concerned that the Justice Department will share the data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is building a powerful citizenship verification tool. The Trump administration previously confirmed to Stateline it plans to share the data.
Besides Maryland, the new wave of lawsuits target Delaware, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, the Justice Department announced in a news release. The department has already sued California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release on Tuesday. “The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”
Maryland Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis declined to offer specific comment on the nine-page court filing against him.
He acknowledged that he and the state Board of Elections have been at odds with Justice Department investigators since they demanded access to elections records including personally identifying information this summer. But he said the state has been working with the feds.
In July, when the department demanded voter registration data between November 2022 and November 2024 DeMarinis and the board opted to treat it as a request under the Maryland Public Information Act. The law includes mandatory redactions of private information. DeMarinis called the request for unredacted information on 4.3 million voters “an overreach.”
“Marylanders should feel confident that the voter registration lists are maintained in accordance with state and federal law to preserve the integrity of our elections, and this office is committed to protecting voters personal information as well, and we are fully committed to that responsibility,” DeMarinis said in a brief phone interview Wednesday.
Over the summer, DeMarinis offered to work with the federal agency, but he said no one at Justice has responded to inquiries about how the request is related to electoral purpose or process as defined in Maryland law, he said.
“We have inquired as to their motives for this list, and we have not received any responses back from the Department of Justice,” DeMarinis said Wednesday. “To claim that we are refusing or withholding it is incorrect because we are waiting for them to respond back to see if they comply with state law.”
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore in September similarly offered the Justice Department a free copy of his state’s publicly available voter list. The information is typically provided upon request with a $25 fee, but he refused to provide confidential personal information absent legal action.
“This lawsuit, like those filed in other states, is a continuation of the current presidential administration’s unconstitutional attempts to interfere with elections processes across the country,” Amore said in a statement Tuesday. “One of my most important responsibilities as the chief state election official is safeguarding the data privacy of Rhode Islanders, who entrust us with their personal information when they register to vote. I will continue to fight to protect it.”
Editor’s note: Maryland Matters reporter Bryan P. Sears contributed to this story from Annapolis. Rhode Island Current reporters Nancy Lavin and Christopher Shea contributed reporting. This story was updated to clarify the states previously sued by the Department of Justice. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Maryland Matters, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.