Federal Judge Dismisses DOJ Suit Seeking Oregon Voter Rolls

U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking Oregon's unredacted voter registration list of nearly 3.8 million voters, and said he will issue a written opinion soon, according to court records.

The lawsuit, filed by the DOJ in September, sought names, birth dates, addresses, driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, and formed part of the administration's broader efforts to obtain detailed voter data from at least 23 states, court documents show.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a statement that "the court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place," calling the demand a potential backdoor for personal information.

Attorney General Pam Bondi's recent letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz asking state cooperation on immigration steps including turning over voter rolls prompted Judge Kasubhai to order DOJ and Oregon to explain the letter's relevance to the records request, according to the docket.

Since May, the Justice Department has demanded complete voter registration lists from nearly every state and Washington, D.C., and has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C., for refusing to hand over sensitive voter information, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.