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By Hollie Silverman
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Democratic U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell on Monday said the Department of Justice (DOJ) had unlawfully sued Washington state to compel the release of its full voter registration rolls.
As a result, Cantwell joined the resistance against the DOJ's election demands—as the department has filed similar lawsuits against two dozen states and Washington, D.C.—according to a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday, the senator said in a press release.
The senators urged the DOJ to halt what they described as a pressure campaign to centralize states’ voter rolls containing personal information.
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The letter followed recent federal court rulings that rejected DOJ lawsuits in California, Oregon and Georgia. The senators said Washington is among 24 states sued by the DOJ since November for refusing to provide full voter rolls.
In a statement emailed to Newsweek Monday, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division said, "Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections. The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”
Why It Matters
Washington state leaders say the DOJ lawsuit seeks unredacted voter data, including sensitive information like dates of birth and portions of Social Security or driver’s license numbers, which they note that state and local officials—not the federal government—maintain under law.
Senators warned that centralizing state voter registration lists at the DOJ could jeopardize privacy and election security as well as spur unwarranted voter roll purges, especially if lists are cross-checked against federal databases in ways that may produce false matches.
They also argued that the DOJ lacks statutory authority to compel states to hand over complete voter files, raising concerns of federalism.
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What To Know
Cantwell and her colleagues said the DOJ has sued dozens of states in a bid to obtain full voter registration lists and asked the department to “cease” its efforts and brief Congress on data handling, access controls and retention plans.
They also set a February 11 deadline for written responses from the DOJ and requested a Senate briefing by February 25.
The senators said U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz seeking the state’s voter rolls as a condition for ending federal deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel to Minneapolis, calling the approach an “unacceptable escalation.”
The DOJ's demand came despite recent federal court setbacks to the department's litigation in other states. Federal courts in California and Oregon ruled in mid-January that those states were not required to provide the DOJ with unredacted voter registration lists, and a Georgia case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds before the department refiled.
The letter also referenced an FBI seizure of voting records from Georgia's Fulton County related to the 2020 election, which the senators said had alarmed election officials.
The senators also questioned the DOJ’s alleged use of DHS’s SAVE program to check voter rolls, pointing to correspondence from local officials in Missouri who said known citizens had been erroneously flagged as noncitizens. They warned that expanded data collection and matching could undermine eligible voters’ rights.
The letter also says that the DOJ acknowledged in a court filing that two Department of Government Efficiency staffers may have misused Social Security Administration data by signing a voter data agreement to share information with an outside advocacy group the senators believe to be True the Vote.
What People Are Saying
Cantwell, in a press release Monday: “The Attorney General’s letter to Governor Walz marked an unacceptable escalation of DOJ’s campaign to centralize state voter rolls and sensitive personal information under its control.”
Walz, in a post to X on January 24: "I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now."
Bondi, in a letter to Walz last week: "You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE officers and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota."
What Happens Next
The senators requested written DOJ responses by February 11 and a briefing to Senate committees and lawmakers from states facing litigation by February 25.
They said they would continue oversight of data acquisition, storage and any use of federal verification systems involving voter information.
Update 2/2/26 5:52 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with more information.
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