PHOENIX (LN) — A federal court dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking Arizona's statewide voter registration list, ruling the database is not a "record" subject to production under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and adopting reasoning from parallel cases that have defeated the federal government's nationwide litigation against multiple states over voter data.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona granted Secretary of State Adrian Fontes' motion to dismiss, finding that Title III of the Civil Rights Act only requires states to preserve documents that "come into [the state's] possession" from voters, not the comprehensive databases states create and maintain.
The Justice Department sued 29 states and the District of Columbia, alleging that state officials violated federal law by refusing to produce their statewide voter registration lists (SVRLs) during investigations into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.
The SVRL includes a registered voter's full name, date of birth, residential address, and state driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Fontes refused the request, citing state and federal privacy laws that prohibit the release of such identifying information.
The court's decision relies heavily on United States v. Benson, a February ruling from the Western District of Michigan that held Michigan's voter registration list was not a § 20701 document because it is "created by state officials" rather than submitted by voters.
"The Court agrees and finds Benson persuasive on this point and adopts its reasoning," the Arizona judge wrote in an order dated April 28.
The court rejected the Justice Department's argument that Title III's language is "sweeping" enough to cover electronic databases. The judge noted that previous cases cited by the U.S. Department of Justice, such as Kennedy v. Lynd, did not address voter registration lists and merely reiterated the plain text of the statute regarding documents received from election officials.
The court also found that interpreting the SVRL as a protected document would create a conflict with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, both of which require states to actively update and maintain their voter rolls.
Under Title III, altering a protected document is a crime. If the SVRL were a § 20701 document, the NVRA's mandate to remove ineligible voters would directly conflict with the prohibition on altering records.
"Nothing in the CRA's text implies an intent to require states to preserve every election-related record that they create," the court wrote, echoing Benson.
The Justice Department argued that limiting production to individual applications would deny the Attorney General the ability to investigate systemic discrimination. The court countered that a list of successful registrants is of little help in determining whether applications were unlawfully rejected.
The dismissal comes as one of five federal courts to address the issue this year. The other four courts—ruling in California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island—have also dismissed the DOJ's suits on similar grounds.
The Arizona court dismissed the case with prejudice, ruling that amendment would be legally futile.