The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday expanded its nationwide enforcement campaign over access to voter registration records, filing federal lawsuits against four more jurisdictions, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, and Wisconsin, adding to an already growing list of cases brought under federal election law.
The new filings bring the Justice Department’s total number of voter roll enforcement actions to 22, as the Civil Rights Division continues to press states and local jurisdictions to turn over complete voter registration data. DOJ said the actions are aimed at enforcing federal requirements governing voter list maintenance and transparency.
The department said three additional states, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, informed federal officials of their intent to voluntarily comply with DOJ requests for full voter registration lists. With those commitments, the Justice Department said 10 states are now either in full compliance or in the process of compliance.
Georgia is among the four jurisdictions named in the latest round of lawsuits, with the Justice Department suing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over an incomplete response to federal requests for voter roll data. DOJ said the information provided by Raffensperger’s office did not include all requested fields, including voters’ full names, dates of birth, residential addresses, state driver’s license numbers, or the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
Raffensperger said his office shared Georgia’s voter list maintenance practices and public voter roll data with the Justice Department on Dec. 8. Federal prosecutors are now asking a judge to cite him under the Civil Rights Act and order the full voter registration dataset to be produced within five days of any court order.
Earlier this month, Fulton County admitted that roughly 315,000 early votes from the 2020 election were improperly certified yet counted in the final results. The disclosure came during a Dec. 9 hearing before the Georgia State Election Board, following a March 2022 challenge from local election integrity activist David Cross. Cross alleged the county violated state law by counting votes without polling workers signing the required tabulation “tapes.”
Ann Brumbaugh, attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, acknowledged the oversight, saying the county “does not dispute that the tapes were not signed” and noted that since 2020, new leadership and updated procedures have been implemented.
A 2024 investigation by Georgia’s Secretary of State confirmed the findings, reporting that 36 of 37 advanced voting precincts failed to sign tabulation tapes and officials at 32 polling sites did not verify zero tapes, substantiating the claims of improper handling of early votes.
Sources: DOJ Press Release / Just The News / The Federalist
