Ninth Circuit Hears DOJ Appeal Over Oregon, California Refusal to Hand Over Voter Records

A panel of federal appeals court judges on May 19 grappled with the Trump administration’s efforts to procure unredacted voter registration records from California and Oregon. The hearing came as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been reaching out to states by seeking voter rolls with complete personal information, mainly driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers. About a dozen states have provided the data voluntarily. The department said the information is necessary to determine whether states are complying with federal voter roll maintenance laws. Democratic states have largely refused to provide the data. Some Republican states also have been wary of handing over the records, usually referring the DOJ to the public versions of their voter lists with sensitive information redacted....