The Trump administration ramped up its election integrity efforts on Tuesday, filing lawsuits against six Democrat-led states for refusing to hand over voter registration data. The Department of Justice said Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington failed to comply with federal law by stonewalling requests for their full voter rolls.
“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,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi. “The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”
The lawsuits accuse the states of violating both the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, laws that require states to maintain clean, up-to-date voter rolls. The DOJ says it is entitled to review these lists under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to ensure compliance.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon echoed Bondi’s message, slamming blue states for defiance. “States that continue to defy federal voting laws interfere with our mission of ensuring that Americans have accurate voter lists as they go to the polls, that every vote counts equally, and that all voters have confidence in election results,” she said. “At this Department of Justice, we will not stand for this open defiance of federal civil rights laws.”
One of the lawsuits, targeting Rhode Island, revealed that the state outright refused the DOJ’s September 8 request. According to the suit, Rhode Island’s response on September 16 stated it “objects to providing” the requested information, which included data used to verify voter eligibility, such as driver’s license records and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha fired back, claiming the lawsuit was political. “We stand with and will defend the secretary, and win, because lawsuits concerning lawful conduct are largely unsuccessful,” he said. “But I’m not surprised that this administration is confused about what it means to behave lawfully.”
This latest round of legal action follows similar suits announced in September against Michigan, California, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and New York—all for the same reason: failure to comply with federal requests for voter roll transparency.
The lawsuits come amid a wider Republican push to combat non-citizen voting and restore trust in elections. Trump has repeatedly emphasized the need for clean voter rolls and tougher election security, warning that bloated and inaccurate registries open the door to fraud.
While Democrats continue to frame these moves as partisan or unnecessary, the Trump administration insists that transparency, accountability, and enforcement of existing laws are non-negotiable pillars of American democracy.
The post Justice Department Moves To Safeguard Elections In Blue States appeared first on Real News Now.
About Author
