Appeals court deals biggest setback yet to Trump DOJ’s demands for confidential voter roll data

Key Points:

• A federal appeals court ruled that Michigan is not required to provide the Justice Department with non-public voter registration data, marking a significant defeat for the Trump administration's efforts to access unredacted voter rolls nationwide.
• The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals found that the 1960 Civil Rights Act, cited by the DOJ, does not compel states to share internally created voter files, as these are not records "obtained" from third parties.
• This ruling follows nine district court decisions against the administration and may lead to a Supreme Court review, highlighting ongoing legal resistance to the DOJ's attempts to assert federal control over state election data.
• The DOJ's campaign to access voter rolls, motivated by claims of 2020 election fraud, has faced multiple judicial setbacks, including recent rulings blocking the use of federal citizenship data for voter purges and parts of a Trump executive order on election rules.
• The administration intends to use the voter data to cross-check citizenship status via a Department of Homeland Security system, which has been criticized for inaccuracies and false positives, particularly affecting naturalized citizens.