A federal appeals court panel rejected the DOJ’s Michigan voter registration data appeal on Wednesday, affirming dismissal of the lawsuit that sought Michigan’s unredacted voter registration database. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had refused to hand over the file and gave the DOJ only the public version of the voter list.
The case turned on names, dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers the DOJ wanted from the full file. A Trump-appointed district judge had dismissed the case in February, and the Sixth Circuit’s ruling became the DOJ’s first appellate loss in its voter-roll cases.
Jocelyn Benson and the voter file
Benson’s response was narrower than what the DOJ requested. She did not provide the unredacted database the department sought, which meant the dispute reached the court over whether the federal government could force disclosure of sensitive personal information from a state-maintained voter record.
The Sixth Circuit said the qualified voter file was created and maintained by Michigan, not received from voters. Judge Andre Mathis wrote that the government once used the power to ensure that everyone who had the right to vote could freely exercise that right, but now invokes Title III of the 1960 Civil Rights Act for an inverse purpose: to ensure that some people have not voted.
Sixth Circuit majority
Judge Andre Mathis and Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. formed the 2-1 majority. The opinion said an ordinary English speaker would not say a person has come into possession of something she created, established and maintained. It also said the qualified voter file did not come into Benson’s possession as that term is ordinarily understood.
The court added that federal laws require states to keep voter rolls current, while DOJ’s reading of Title III would treat the voter file as a record that must be preserved and not altered for 22 months. The panel said that interpretation would put election officials in an impossible position.
Kentucky and Title III
The ruling is binding precedent in the Sixth Circuit, which includes Kentucky. That gives the decision immediate force in the DOJ’s pending voter-roll lawsuit there, where the same Title III theory now faces the same appellate court reading.
Judge John Nalbandian dissented. After Wednesday’s ruling, the DOJ had lost ten decisions in its voter-roll cases, including nine district court rulings and one appeals court ruling.
