Ashley Cleaves, Legal Content Editor

I'm back this week filling in for Marc with more legal analysis from the front lines of the democracy fight. For those who don't know me, I lead the research team at Democracy Docket, where we track over a thousand voting rights and redistricting lawsuits and break down the filings in real time to keep you informed on the latest. You may have also seen me join Marc on YouTube when there’s major breaking news.

One issue we’ve heard growing concerns about from readers is the Trump DOJ’s sweeping attempt to obtain voter roll data from nearly every state in the country. Those concerns are well-founded. But here’s the good news: So far, the DOJ is losing. Badly.

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Trump’s Justice Department proudly filed 31 lawsuits against 30 states and Washington, D.C., demanding access to sensitive voter roll data. They bragged about their assault on every social media platform and podcast that they could.

But lately, they’ve been very quiet.

That’s because they have come up empty-handed in every case in which there’s been a ruling: California, Oregon, Michigan, Arizona, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine and Wisconsin. Last Thursday, federal judges in those last two states handed the DOJ consecutive losses within minutes of each other.

Eight judges — including four Trump appointees — have rebuffed the DOJ’s demands, finding that they don’t have the right to obtain states’ voter roll data.

The department has insisted that it is merely enforcing voter roll maintenance requirements under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and that Title III of the Civil Rights Act gives it authority to access the records.

But federal judges haven’t bought it.

In Maine, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker, a Trump appointee, wrote that “whatever investigatory purposes may support a Title III records demand, voter list maintenance is not among them.”

Walker also pointedly called out DOJ’s shifting and contradictory explanations for why it wants access to voter rolls nationwide. As Walker noted in a footnote, DOJ attorneys insisted during oral argument that concerns about the federal government building a national voter database were overblown and “not true.” But, as it turns out, the only thing that wasn’t true were DOJ’s assurances.

Walker wrote that the department’s “efforts to assuage these concerns were almost immediately undermined” by a new executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile a “State Citizenship List” to “assist in verifying identity and Federal election voter eligibility.”

And in Wisconsin, U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled that statewide voter registration lists are not records subject to the Civil Rights Act at all — echoing decisions out of Michigan and Arizona that similarly rejected DOJ’s demands.

The bottom line: Courts across the country continue to shut down the Trump DOJ’s unprecedented attempt to gain unfettered access to state voter rolls.

But remember, the fight against Trump’s dangerous effort to interfere in elections is far from over. And at Democracy Docket, we’re committed to bringing you up-to-the-minute reporting on every twist and turn.

Our researcher, Maya, reviewed both opinions in the voter roll cases minutes after they came down, and rapidly provided analysis for our news and social media teams to bring you the most accurate information as quickly as possible. We are tracking every filing in 25 active voter roll cases from the DOJ — including three appeals heard in court this month.

Your support allows us to update you the moment we get decisions like this. Through your contributions, we’ll continue to provide the deepest analysis of this legal battle and the broader fight to protect our democracy.

Maya Bodinson contributed to this email.