The Department of Justice has now asked 22 federal courts to let it demand unredacted voter rolls from the states, and it has lost 22 times. Democracy Docket reported Friday that 21 federal district courts plus one appeals panel have rejected the department's legal theory, in cases spanning roughly 26 states and the District of Columbia [1]. Twenty-one district losses plus one appellate loss makes 22 rejections and zero wins. The department's response to that record has not been to narrow the demand or revise the argument. It is advancing the identical theory, unmodified [1].
What that position sounds like in a courtroom was captured this week in an exchange the department's own lawyer supplied. Judge Kymbrely Evanson asked, "Is there any meaningful basis on which to distinguish this case from the many other district courts..." DOJ attorney Raymond Yang answered, "No, your Honor. Relevant facts are similar to all the other cases." Yang then completed the department's argument for it, telling the court that "All the other courts got it wrong" [1]. That is the whole theory now. Not that this case is different. Not that this state's records raise a distinct question. The claim is that 21 district judges and an appeals panel, ruling independently across more than two dozen jurisdictions, all reached the same wrong answer.
The demand at issue rests on Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which the department reads as entitling it to state voter rolls with the redactions removed [1]. There is nothing improper in principle about a litigant who believes a line of rulings is mistaken; the appellate system exists for exactly that belief, and a party that loses below is entitled to seek review above. The ordinary practice after losses on this scale, though, is to change something: trim the request, adjust the statutory argument, or take one clean case up for controlling review and let the rest wait. Democracy Docket's reporting describes none of that. The theory the department pressed in front of Judge Evanson is the same one that has already lost 22 times [1].
Readers of this site have seen this docket before. On Thursday we covered the Colorado ruling that dismissed the department's case with prejudice, at which point the tally across the country stood at 21 district court rejections, one appellate rejection, and nine cases still pending, 31 cases in all. The decided column has not moved in the department's favor since. Every court to rule has ruled against it.
The records at stake are worth stating plainly, because "voter rolls" sounds like a spreadsheet of names. The unredacted versions the department has demanded contain registered voters' birthdates, home addresses, and partial Social Security numbers. The redactions the department wants removed are the ones standing between that data and a federal government that 22 courts have said has no statutory right to it. Each new case also carries a bill: the states on the receiving end, which is to say their taxpayers, are funding the defense of what the department's own attorney concedes is the same case, over and over.
A record of 0 for 22 would ordinarily settle a legal question. The department's answer, delivered by its own lawyer in open court, is that the question is settled the other way and every judge to consider it has failed to notice. The courts keep saying no. The department keeps asking. The gap between those two facts is where every registered voter's personal data currently sits.
