President Donald Trump's Justice Department demands that states hand over their unredacted voting rolls got a firm rebuke from an unlikely source this week: the West Virginia Secretary of State.
West Virginia is one of the most Trump-supportive states in the entire country, voting for the president by blowout margins three times in a row. But according to the liberal voting rights group Democracy Docket, GOP Secretary Kris Warner believes the DOJ's demand is illegal, and an assault on federalism.
“State law is clear: voter lists are available in a redacted format from my office, but I’ll not be turning over any West Virginian’s protected information,” said Warner in a prepared statement. “We have offered to work cooperatively with the federal government to maintain the continuity of elections nationwide, but the DOJ doesn’t have the authority to run a state’s elections. I support efforts to strengthen election integrity, but I will not break the law, give up our State’s rights, or compromise the privacy of our citizens.”
The Trump administration has cited statutes like the Help America Vote Act, National Voter Registration Act, Civil Rights Act of 1960, and Privacy Act of 1974 to argue it has a duty to verify state voter rolls. But Warner, writing back to the DOJ, replied, “Our Office performed a thorough review of the cited statutes, none of which require compliance with such a broad request.”
The DOJ has made these requests to all 50 states, including for complete lists of every registered voter's full name, driver's license number, and partial Social Security number. While a handful of states have complied, dozens have refused, including many run by Republicans. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a conservative Republican notorious for rebuffing Trump's demand to "find" extra votes in 2020, has similarly refused to compromise voter privacy by handing over this data.
Trump's administration has responded by suing 25 states and the District of Columbia — but, Democracy Docket's Matt Cohen noted, so far no "not a single judge has ruled in the federal government’s favor yet" and on Tuesday, "a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit against Michigan, concluding that federal law does not require states to provide requested records to the department."