President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice sued Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson and four other states for refusing to hand over entire voter registration databases — something the state’s lieutenant governor said she is legally prohibited from doing.
Last year, the Trump administration sued 24 states, most of them run by Democrats, plus Washington, D.C., but Thursday’s lawsuit demonstrates that the Justice Department also has its sights set on Republican states. To date, according to a tracker by the University of Wisconsin Law School, federal judges have dismissed the lawsuits in California, Georgia, Oregon and Michigan.
The federal court in California ruled that voters should not have to choose between their constitutional right to privacy and their right to vote.
In addition to Utah, the Justice Department filed similar lawsuits in Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia and New Jersey on Thursday, bringing the total to 29 states.
The administration contends it needs the nation’s complete voter list — which includes Social Security numbers, birth dates, driver license data and other private information — to verify states are adequately maintaining their voter registration records.
“This latest series of litigation underscores that this Department of Justice is fulfilling its duty to ensure transparency, voter roll maintenance, and secure elections across the country,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
The federal government does not run elections. Even in a national election, like for the presidency, each state conducts its own election and reports those tallies to Congress.
“Neither state nor federal law entitles the Department of Justice to collect private information on law-abiding American citizens,” Henderson said in a statement responding to the suit. “Utahns can be assured that my office will always follow the Constitution and the law, protect voters’ rights, and administer free and fair elections.”
The lawsuit, filed by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, says that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 requires state elections officers to maintain comprehensive records of elections and “likewise grants the Attorney General the sweeping power to obtain these records.”
It argues that the U.S. attorney general only needs to show that it requested the records and the state official did not comply with the request in order for the court to compel the release of the documents.
The Justice Department sent a letter to Henderson in July demanding her office turn over the complete, unredacted voter database. Utah was one of more than 30 states that received such a letter.
Henderson provided a version of that voter data that is available to political parties and does not include Social Security numbers or other private information, nor did it include the names of voters whose information is legally withheld — like law enforcement officers and domestic violence victims.
She also insisted at the time that Utah’s voter rolls were being properly maintained and that the state had identified four non-citizens on the rolls in the span of two years and all four were removed from the database.
According to the lawsuit, the Justice Department sent a follow-up letter demanding Henderson provide the records and stating that the data would be handled in accordance with the federal Privacy Act and other applicable federal laws.
Henderson responded on Aug. 29, requesting additional information to address privacy concerns. On Dec. 2, the Justice Department provided a memorandum of understanding outlining the security and privacy parameters. Henderson responded on Dec. 9, according to the lawsuit, saying she needed more time before responding.
The suit claims,to date, she has not provided the records.
The lawsuit asks the federal court to order Henderson to provide a digital version of the entire statewide voter database “with all fields” — including a voter’s full name, date of birth, residential address and either their driver license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number within five days of the court’s order.
The attempts by the Justice Department to accumulate massive troves of voter registration information for most of the country come as the Trump administration pushes for strict voter identification laws and to do away with mail-in balloting.
Earlier this month, House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said that administration officials had endorsed a bill that would end almost all mail-in balloting, require individuals to deliver ballots in person and show identification in order to vote.
That bill was approved by a House committee late Wednesday evening.
Subsequent to the initial July request from the Justice Department, Henderson’s office did a further scrub of the state’s voter database and found one noncitizen who was registered to vote. It also identified 486 individuals — out of 2.1 million voter records — whose information was incomplete or inaccurate.
Her office is tracking down those registered voters individually, but said it would not release an update on the progress of that effort until all 486 had been contacted.
Last summer, former Republican Rep. Phil Lyman, who lost to Gov. Spencer Cox and Henderson in the 2024 Republican primary, sued Henderson because he had requested a full, unredacted version of the voter list and the lieutenant governor’s office provided him with information on how to acquire the public version of the list.
That wasn’t adequate, Lyman said. He then retained the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which had represented other clients across the country in similar disputes, and demanded the complete database.
Last month, based on a recent decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal judge dismissed Lyman’s lawsuit, finding that he was not substantively harmed by the refusal by Henderson’s office to release the list. Lyman’s lawyers have appealed that decision.
Currently, Republican state legislators are pushing for a constitutional amendment that would remove the oversight of elections from the lieutenant governor’s office and create a new office — an elected secretary of state — to manage elections. That bill was approved by a committee this week and is awaiting debate by the House.
If approved by the Legislature, it would require approval by voters in November.
Correction, 2:40 p.m. • This story has been corrected to report that Utah and four other states were sued by the Trump administration.