DOJ sues New Hampshire over voter registration rolls

New Hampshire is one of several states sued Thursday by the Trump administration over its refusal to turn over non-public voter registration data.

A lawsuit, filed in federal court by the U.S. Department of Justice, alleges that New Hampshire violates the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law that requires states to make voter list maintenance records available for review for at least two years.

The lawsuit, which names Secretary of State David Scanlan, claims his "refusal" to turn over the voter data — including names, addresses, and other personal identification — "hinders" the federal agency's ability to ensure that the state complies with federal voting laws.

"Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. "Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court."

Scanlan, a Republican, has twice rejected a DOJ request for a voter registration list, citing a state law declaring the data "private and confidential” and not subject to public records requests. He argues that the state is one of six exempt from the NVRA.

"New Hampshire law authorizes the Secretary of State to release the statewide voter registration list in limited circumstances not applicable here," Scanlan wrote in one of his responses. "That said, each municipality's public checklist can be obtained from their respective supervisors or clerks."

The DOJ asks a judge to order New Hampshire to turn over its latest voter registration list, including active and inactive voters, registrants' full names, dates of birth, residential addresses, and either their state driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number.

There was no immediate comment from Scanlan's office about the DOJ's lawsuit.

New Hampshire is one of several states targeted by the Trump administration as it investigates state election policies as part of broader efforts to prevent voter fraud. Other states hit with similar lawsuits on Thursday included New York, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota. Earlier this month, the DOJ sued election officials in Maine and Oregon.

The Department of Justice has accused Arizona election officials of not properly checking voters’ identities, in violation of Help America Vote Act. It accused Wisconsin’s elections board of failing to provide voters with a process for filing complaints about voter fraud and election law violations.

Meanwhile, conservative groups like the Public Interest Legal Foundation have filed hundreds of public records requests across the country to gain access to voter files. Many of them target states led by Democrats, and the disputes have landed in the courts in most cases.

Concerns about election integrity in New Hampshire prompted Republican lawmakers to set a new requirement that all first-time voters in the state show proof of their U.S. citizenship in the form of a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers at the polls when they register. That law is being challenged in court by civil liberty groups.