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Then-candidate Donald Trump arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, Thursday, May 9, 2024. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP).
The Trump administration is utilizing its “enormous federal authority” to target the president’s “political adversaries” in Maine and Oregon through two recent lawsuits aimed at acquiring voter registration data to “compromise our elections,” according to local officials.
“This isn’t typical,” stated Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in a statement on Wednesday. “Trump’s DOJ is wielding vast federal power to pressure us into surrendering protected voter information and adjusting our voting systems to suit President Trump’s desires,” Bellows criticized. “We’re standing firm because we have confidence in our diligent state and local election officials who conduct outstanding elections here.”
The Department of Justice filed two distinct lawsuits in Maine and Oregon on Tuesday, claiming the legal actions arose from the states’ purported failure to supply information concerning “voter list maintenance processes” and electronic versions of the statewide voter registration lists, according to a DOJ press release.
“States cannot selectively adhere to federal laws, including those governing voting, which guarantee equal access to the ballot for all American citizens in federal elections,” stated Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “American citizens must trust the integrity of our electoral system, and the failure of certain states to shield their citizens from vote dilution will lead to legal repercussions,” Dhillon asserted.
The lawsuit against Oregon claims that the state and its officials breached the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) by “refusing to provide” the current unredacted electronic version of the state’s voter registration list. The Trump administration further accused Oregon of not supplying information on the state’s voter list management program and denying access to registration details for “any ineligible voters.”
The lawsuit against Maine alleges that the state and its officials similarly violated the NVRA, HAVA, and CRA by withholding data on the removal of “ineligible individuals” and an “unredacted, computerized state voter registration list.”
Both Oregon and Maine have allegedly denied the requests for local voter info.
“To prevent fraudulent votes from being cast, federal law requires that States conduct routine list maintenance procedures of their statewide voter registration databases,” DOJ lawyers said in the Oregon complaint. “Accurate voter rolls prevent the opportunity for fraud in federal elections,” they argued. “The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice is tasked with ensuring that States conduct voter registration list maintenance to prevent the inclusion of ineligible voters on any State’s voter registration list.”
In the Maine complaint, the DOJ described how Maine is a member of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an organization that it says is comprised of states whose “mission” is to “assist states in improving the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increasing access to voter registration for all eligible citizens.”
The complaint accuses Maine of providing “the identical information” that the DOJ has requested to ERIC, a private organization, “which lacks any enforcement authority, yet refuses to adhere to federal law and provide that same information to the Attorney General of the United States.”
Both states, according to the DOJ, have failed to provide “sufficient responses” and information that the Trump administration says is “necessary” for the attorney general to determine if Maine is conducting “a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.”