7th and 8th judges rebuff Justice Dept.'s attempts to get voter rolls from states

Politics 7th and 8th judges rebuff Justice Department's attempts to get voter rolls, this time from Maine and Wisconsin By Melissa Quinn Melissa Quinn Senior Reporter, Politics Melissa Quinn is a senior reporter for CBSNews.com, where she covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts. Read Full Bio Melissa Quinn May 21, 2026 / 3:19 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Washington — The Justice Department on Thursday suffered its seventh and eighth losses in its efforts to obtain sensitive voter information from more than two dozen states, with federal judges dismissing its lawsuits seeking access to Maine's and Wisconsin's voter rolls.In the Maine case, Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker granted requests to toss out the Justice Department's suit, which sought to force state officials to hand over Maine's complete voter registration list, including birth dates, driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.Walker was the seventh judge to reject the Trump administration's efforts to obtain states' voter rolls. But U.S. District Judge James Peterson soon became the eighth when he agreed to dismiss the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking voter information from Wisconsin.Attempts to secure voter registration lists from Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island have also been unsuccessful. In his 22-page decision, Walker, who was appointed by President Trump in his first term, wrote that the Justice Department cannot compel access to Maine's voter rolls. He rejected the administration's claim that the Civil Rights Act and two voting laws, the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act, required the state to turn over its voter rolls to the Justice Department. The voting laws, Walker said, "do not contemplate production of the unredacted computerized list to the Attorney General so that he might loom over the shoulder of the state election official to poi...