Justice Department sues Idaho for voter roll access in national oversight campaign

The DOJ Civil Rights Division filed suit against Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane on April 1, 2026, seeking a court order compelling Idaho to turn over its statewide voter registration database, including partial Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers for each registrant. The suit was the DOJ's 30th action against a state or D.C. in a coordinated national campaign to obtain voter registration data.

McGrane had initially signed a data-sharing agreement with the Justice Department in fall 2025, appearing poised to comply. By February 2026, he reversed course entirely, telling federal officials there was "no clear legal duty" to provide the data. The DOJ had formally requested Idaho's voter rolls in September 2025.

The DOJ invoked two federal statutes as legal authority. Section 8(i) of the National Voter Registration ActNational Voter Registration ActA 1993 federal law that requires states to offer voter registration at DMVs and agencies, and sets rules for maintaining voter rolls.Key ConceptNational Voter Registration ActA 1993 federal law that requires states to offer voter registration at DMVs and agencies, and sets rules for maintaining voter rolls.Open conceptBookmark requires states to make voter registration records available for "public inspection" and copying for at least two years. Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960Civil Rights Act of 1960A federal law that gave the DOJ authority to inspect voting records in order to fight Jim Crow-era voter suppression in the South.Key ConceptCivil Rights Act of 1960A federal law that gave the DOJ authority to inspect voting records in order to fight Jim Crow-era voter suppression in the South.Open conceptBookmark gives the Attorney General the right to demand election records from state officials when investigating compliance with federal voting laws.

Idaho disputed both grounds. McGrane argued that Section 8(i) requires public inspection at a state office, not transmission of raw data to federal servers. On the Civil Rights Act claim, Idaho said the DOJ failed to state "the basis and purpose" of its investigation as the statute requires, a standard a federal judge in Massachusetts had already used to block a similar DOJ data demand against another state.

The Idaho lawsuit is the 30th action in a coordinated voter data campaign launched by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon in early 2025. The DOJ contacted all 50 states and D.C. demanding voter registration records, claiming it needed the data to identify dead voters, non-citizens, and duplicate registrations.

Dhillon said publicly the DOJ reviewed 60 million voter records and identified approximately 350,000 individuals still listed on rolls who appear to have died. The Election Law Blog tracked Dhillon's five consecutive court losses in voter data cases through early April 2026, calling them "an unbroken string of defeats" in federal courts across the country.

McGrane's position was unusual: a Republican secretary of state in a deep-red state resisting a Republican federal administration. Idaho gave Trump more than 64 percent of the vote in 2024. McGrane has supported Republican voting priorities, including voter ID requirements.

McGrane cited Idaho Code Section 34-2402, which restricts public disclosure of voter registration information, and argued the statute doesn't allow the state to transmit partial Social Security numbers to federal agencies. His reversal in February 2026 came after consulting with Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, who backed the decision to resist the DOJ's demand.

The specific data the DOJ demanded goes beyond what states routinely share publicly. Standard voter roll information includes name, address, party registration, and voting history. The DOJ's demand included partial Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers, which Idaho law treats as protected personal information.

Election law attorneys noted a core legal tension: Congress passed the NVRA in 1993 to expand voter registration access, not to create a federal voter surveillance database. Section 8(i)'s "public inspection" language was written to let civil rights organizations check state rolls for improper purges, not to compel states to upload sensitive records to a federal system. Several states that complied negotiated data-sharing terms that excluded Social Security numbers.

Federal courts had already blocked similar DOJ voter data demands before the Idaho lawsuit was filed. A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that Dhillon's Civil Rights Act demand was legally insufficient because the DOJ failed to state "the basis and the purpose" of its investigation, a procedural requirement of the statute.

Idaho's legal team planned to raise the same defense. Voting rights groups including the Brennan Center for Justice filed amicus briefs supporting Idaho's position. The DOJ's pattern of losses in this campaign raised questions about whether the voter data effort was designed to succeed in court or to pressure states into compliance through the cost and disruption of litigation.

The Idaho lawsuit runs parallel to a broader federal effort to build a national voter database. Trump's March 31, 2026, executive order directed DHS and the Social Security Administration to compile a citizenship list and transmit it to each state's chief election official.

Together, the DOJ voter roll demands and the March 31 executive order represent a two-track strategy. The DOJ collects existing state voter data including Social Security numbers, while DHS and SSA build a parallel federal citizenship list from agency records. If both tracks succeeded, the executive branch would hold a federal voter database the president could use to validate or challenge ballot eligibility before the November 2026 midterms.

The NVRA was enacted in 1993 under President Bill Clinton to reduce barriers to voter registration. It required states to offer registration at motor vehicle agencies (the "motor voter" provision), public assistance offices, and through mail-in forms. Section 8 governs list maintenance, requiring states to remove dead voters and people who have moved, but also prohibiting purges within 90 days of an election.

The DOJ's use of NVRA Section 8(i) to demand full voter databases with Social Security numbers is a novel legal theory. The provision was designed to allow civil rights groups to inspect rolls for improper purges, not to give the federal government administrative access to state election systems. No prior administration had used Section 8(i) to demand this volume of sensitive personal data from state election officials.

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 was passed during the civil rights movement to protect Black voters in the South from having their registration records destroyed or hidden by hostile local officials. Title III gave the Attorney General authority to demand access to election records to investigate discrimination.

The Trump DOJ's use of this statute against Republican officials like McGrane marks a sharp departure from its original purpose. Voting rights attorneys representing Idaho argued the statute doesn't authorize bulk data extraction from states with no evidence of discriminatory voter suppression, and that applying it this way inverts the law's intent.