The Trump Justice Department has sued to get access to Virginia’s full voter registration list, saying the state has illegally refused to turn it over.
The feds want access to names, dates of birth, addresses and the unique voter ID number the state uses — usually a driver’s license or partial Social Security number.
“Accurate voter rolls are the foundation of election integrity, and any state that fails to meet this basic obligation of transparency can expect to see us in court,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday.
Virginia is now the 24th jurisdiction to face such a lawsuit.
Most of those lawsuits have come against Democrat-led states. The new lawsuit comes a day before Virginia’s top state leadership changes from all-Republican to all-Democrat.
The department says it has a right to the data under the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
Federal judges overseeing similar Justice Department challenges to California and Oregon this week rejected Ms. Bondi’s stance.
“The Department of Justice seeks to use civil rights legislation which was enacted for an entirely different purpose to amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data. This effort goes far beyond what Congress intended when it passed the underlying legislation,” Judge David O. Carter, a Clinton appointee, opined.
