The record is unambiguous. The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for complete voter files - names, birthdates, addresses, driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers - and has lost every district-court ruling it has drawn: 17 losses, no wins, and no court order anywhere requiring a state to surrender unredacted files [1][2].
On July 23 it filed notices of appeal in Connecticut, New York and New Mexico [1]. The first two carry the fight into the 2nd Circuit and the third into the 10th, neither of which had seen one of these appeals before, bringing to eight the number of circuits now handling them [1]. The theory is not being reconsidered. It is being redistributed.
The dismissals that prompted this round came in quick succession - New York on July 10, West Virginia on the 13th, Virginia and New Mexico on the 14th, Connecticut on the 17th, Kentucky on the 23rd [2].
The Kentucky ruling came from Judge Claria Horn Boom, an appointee of the president whose department brought the case, and her explanation is the plainest description of the strategy's logic: 'district courts must follow binding circuit precedent unless and until the appeals court changes it' [1]. That is the door these appeals are aimed at.
One state did not make the department knock. Oklahoma settled, and the Justice Department dropped its suit after the state agreed to turn the data over [2].
