Court rejects DOJ lawsuit seeking Nevada voting records

A U.S. District Court judge rejected a lawsuit filed by the federal government seeking Nevada’s unredacted state voter registration database.

U.S. District Judge Anne R. Traum granted Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar’s motion to dismiss the case filed by the Department of Justice in December last year that accused the state of violating the Civil Rights Act by failing to provide records.

In her order filed Friday, Traum said the state did not have to disclose the registration list under the Civil Rights Act and the government had failed to provide a “basis and purpose” to compel the state to produce the records.

The Nevada Secretary of State’s office and DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division had contacted the Secretary of State’s Office on June 25, 2025, requesting “Nevada’s current statewide voter registration list.”

After the office provided a link to a publicly available voter registration list, the DOJ accused it of not being responsive to its request, claiming the state needed to include full names, date of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license and Social Security numbers, despite Nevada law prohibiting lists from including such sensitive data.

The Nevada Attorney General’s Office also weighed in the case, casting doubt on the government’s actual reasoning for the data based on news reports that it could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement.

“And while news reports and statements are suggestive of different or additional DOJ purposes, they are not conclusive,” according to a Nevada attorney general’s motion arguing against any court order to release the records. “Only discovery will permit Nevada to collect the admissible evidence that it would need to effectively contest whether DOJ has accurately represented the purpose for its demand for Nevada’s unredacted voter file.”

The lawsuit filed against Nevada was part of the federal government’s broader push to obtain voter files. According to court records, the DOJ has sent similar demands to more than 40 states since 2025, leading to similar legal battles across the country. In the past few weeks, courts have dealt the Trump administration repeated blows to its requests for voter rolls with Washington, D.C., serving as the other most recent loss.

Out of the more than 30 lawsuits filed, the DOJ has lost 22 and remains winless, though it has not stopped pushing for voting records. A lawsuit filed against the state of Oregon was similarly dismissed in January before the DOJ appealed its case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Citizen Outreach Foundation President Chuck Muth, whose organization has long challenged Nevada’s voter rolls, said he was not familiar with the decision but added that he was not surprised given that similar suits had been unsuccessful in other states.

Meanwhile, civil rights organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union celebrated Friday’s news and lauded Aguilar for protecting voting and privacy rights and standing against election interference and intimidation.

“The Constitution is crystal clear that the states control their own elections,” ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said in a news release. “While we’re glad to see this chapter wrap up, threats of interference into our state-run election system have not ended. We will continue to intervene in any case in which the sensitive information of Nevada voters is subject to risk of federal seizure.”

Contact Devan Patel at dpatel@reviewjournal.com.