WASHINGTON (AURN News) — A federal judge has dealt another setback to the Trump administration’s effort to obtain state voter registration records.
A U.S. District Court judge in New Jersey dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking the state’s unredacted voter registration database, ruling that federal law does not give the DOJ the authority to force New Jersey to turn over that information.
The Justice Department argued it needed the records, including driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers, to investigate whether New Jersey was properly maintaining its voter rolls under federal election laws.
But state officials refused, saying the request raised serious privacy concerns and exceeded the government’s legal authority.
The judge agreed with New Jersey, finding that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 applies to records submitted by voters during registration, not to a state’s computerized voter registration database, which election officials continuously update and maintain.
Click play to listen to the report from AURN White House Correspondent Ebony McMorris. For more news, follow @E_N_McMorris & @aurnonline.
