The Trump administration is suing Michigan and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, claiming her refusal to turn over more complete voter registration data violates federal law and demanding she be ordered to do so.
The U.S. Justice Department filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids on Sept. 25. Similar lawsuits were also filed against California, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania in other courts across the country.
Two days earlier, on Sept. 23, Benson, while participating in an online panel discussion about the Trump administration’s demands for comprehensive voter data — including personal data Benson said the Justice Department isn’t automatically entitled to under the law — said the request amounted to a “power grab” ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
She reiterated that stance after the lawsuit was filed on Sept. 25.
“It’s important for every Michigander to understand what’s at stake here — the U.S. Justice Department is trying to get us to turn over the private, personal information of more than 8 million state residents. That includes people’s driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information,” Benson said. “I told them they can’t have it.
“I’m required to follow the law. State and federal law include strict privacy protections that keep people’s personal data confidential and keep everyone safe from identity theft.”
In a news release that accompanied the filing of the lawsuits against the states on Sept. 25, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the request was justified by the federal government’s responsibility to ensure elections are conducted fairly and without fraud.
“Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” she said. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”
The lawsuit against Benson and Michigan also claimed the state’s efforts to maintain accurate, up-to-date voter rolls were “out of step with national averages,” citing data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission for the 2022-24 election cycle. It said Michigan sent out confirmation notices to voters’ home addresses in an attempt to ensure they still lived at them to just 4.5% of registered voters, compared with a national average of 19.5%, and removed from its voters rolls by reason of death, a voter’s moving to a new location or failure to return a confirmation notice 4.2% of its voters, compared with a 9.1% national average.
But that report clearly shows how widely the totals vary among the states, especially without a uniform requirement as to how states maintain voter rolls, suggesting a national average doesn’t explain much about any individual state’s performance.
In Democratic-run Illinois, for example, confirmation notices were sent to 47% of registered voters and 11% of voters were removed; in Washington, D.C., confirmation notices went to 91% of voters and 21.7% were removed. Republican-led Alabama sent confirmation notices to less than 1% of its voters and removed 3%. South Dakota sent notices to 2.9% of its voters and removed 4.2%. Arizona sent so many confirmation notices it totaled nearly double its number of registered, active voters and removed just under 8% of them.
The lawsuits were signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. She said, “Clean voter rolls protect American citizens from voting fraud and abuse, and restore their confidence that their states’ elections are conducted properly, with integrity, and in compliance with the law.”
Previous lawsuits had been filed against two other states, Maine and Oregon.
The Trump administration requested comprehensive voter lists, along with the associated data about voters, as well as information about states’ efforts to ensure those lists are accurate and the people listed are eligible to vote, this summer. Some states refused to provide the lists; others, like Michigan, provided voter rolls but not personal data like driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers.
On Sept. 23, Benson said federal law only allows states to provide that information for specific reasons and after determining it will be kept secure and private. She and other secretaries of state, whose job it is to maintain voter rolls for their states, said the Justice Department provided no specific rationale for needing the information or any guarantee the data would be kept private. Some news media reports indicated the lists were being turned over to Homeland Security officials to “scrub aliens from voter rolls,” referring to immigrants in the United States illegally.
That has raised concerns from Trump’s critics that he and his administration could attempt to disqualify or intimidate voters or election officials ahead of the 2026 elections, when Republicans hope to retain control of Congress. Trump has continued to press false claims that the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden, was rigged and corrupted by illegal immigrants voting and other means. Numerous probes found no widespread wrongdoing and election fraud is rare.
In the lawsuits, Dhillon says Michigan is required to provide it information needed to exercise its statutory enforcement authority, including voters’ full date of birth, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
She said that information is necessary to allow the Justice Department to enforce the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Help America Vote Act and ensure states have “proper and effective voter registration and voter list maintenance programs,” as the Trump administration put it in its news release. She also said in the lawsuit the Trump administration will comply with federal privacy laws in protecting the data.
But under the NVRA and other laws, states are generally given some autonomy as to how they maintain voter rolls, as long as they make a “reasonable” effort to keep them accurate.
In 2024, a federal judge threw out a claim by the Republican National Committee finding in part that Benson — a Democrat who is running for governor next year — failed to put forward a plausible claim that she wasn’t following federal law, since it also requires the state to err on the side of not disenfranchising eligible voters.
“According to Plaintiffs, this Court should order Defendants to ‘ensure that ineligible registrants are not on the voter rolls.’ Plaintiffs’ requested relief, in telling fashion, flips the statutory mandate on its head,” said U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering of Grand Rapids in that case. “The NVRA obligates Michigan to ‘ensure’ that ‘any eligible applicant is registered to vote,’ and to make a ‘reasonable effort’ to remove the names of ineligible voters.”
Coincidentally, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati on Sept. 25 upheld Beckering’s principal finding that the earlier case be dismissed due to lack of standing, calling the Republican National Committee’s claim of harm “unduly speculative.”
Benson has said the law is on the state’s side. But bringing the weight of the Justice Department down on state election officials could dramatically affect next year’s midterm elections, not least by raising concerns of possible fraud when there has been little if any evidence of it impacting results.
“This kind of request is not normal,” Benson said in her statement following filing of the lawsuit. “Why is this happening now? Why does the federal government want access to everyone’s personal information? I have asked them these questions. Other secretaries of state — both Democrats and Republicans — have also asked them these questions. They refuse to give us a straight answer.”
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.
This story has been updated with additional information.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump administration sues Jocelyn Benson, Michigan for not turning over voter data
Reporting by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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