A Trump-appointed federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Michigan demanding access to its voter registration list.
U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou found that federal law does not require states to hand over voters’ sensitive personal data. In a 23-page opinion, Jarbou concluded that the Justice Department had “failed to state a claim” under the federal statutes it cited in its lawsuit, NBC News reported.
In a 23-page order, Jarbou said federal voting laws cited by the Justice Department do not require the state to turn over the voter information. The Justice Department cited the Help America Vote Act, the National Voter Registration Act and the Civil Rights Act in its lawsuit.
Jarbou, a Trump appointee, wrote: “As explained below, the Court concludes that (1) HAVA does not require the disclosure of any records, (2) the NVRA does not require the disclosure of voter registration lists because they are not records concerning the implementation of list maintenance procedures, and (3) the CRA does not require the disclosure of voter registration lists because they are not documents that come into the possession of election officials.”
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit after after the agency demanded that Michigan turn over an electronic copy of its voter registration database, which includes voters’ full names, addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers.
Michigan officials agreed to only provide the publicly available parts of the file and refused to give the Justice Department sensitive identifying information.
The Justice Department responded with a lawsuit arguing that Michigan violated three federal laws including the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The agency argued that it needed access to the data to root out voter fraud and to confirm that Michigan was complying with federal requirements related to maintaining its voter rolls and registration procedures, according to The New York Times.
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Judge dismisses DOJ lawsuit seeking Michigan's voter roll data It's the third time this year a court has tossed out a lawsuit by the Trump administration in its push to get details of state voter registration lists.https://t.co/VhQdvHYjRT via @nbcnews
— Nancy Willing (@NancyWilling1) February 11, 2026
Jarbou rejected the DOJ’s contention that the three statutes it invoked can be used to force a state to provide unredacted voter rolls to the agency. She argued that HAVA does not require states to disclose any records and that Michigan’s electronic voter rolls are not covered under the type of information that the “list maintenance” statute lays out.
This ruling presents a major setback for the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain unredacted voter rolls from states and centralize the information in a federal database. The White House has consistently argued that this is part of the effort to ensure fair and transparent federal elections.
Since President Donald Trump’s second term began, the Justice Department has demanded full access to voter registration databases, including information like driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers. It has made these demands of 44 states and Washington, D.C.
The department has filed lawsuits against 24 states and the District of Columbia when they refused to comply with the demands. Federal courts in California and Oregon have already rejected these lawsuits for reasons similar to that of Judge Jarbou.
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