The legal tug-of-war over America’s voter registration records has intensified.
The United States Department of Justice has filed fresh lawsuits against five states—Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia and New Jersey—accusing them of failing to hand over complete voter registration lists.
With these new cases, the total number of states facing similar action has climbed to 29, along with the District of Columbia.
At the heart of the dispute is access to voter rolls—databases that track who is registered to vote and are routinely updated by state and local officials. Federal officials argue that full transparency and properly maintained records are essential to safeguarding elections.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said accurate voter rolls are foundational to public trust in elections, describing them as central to maintaining electoral integrity.
In the United States, elections—even for federal offices—are run not by Washington but by state and local authorities. That decentralized system has long been a defining feature of American democracy, but it has also become a flashpoint in recent years.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned the reliability of the U.S. electoral system, continuing to assert that his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud—claims that courts and election officials across the country have rejected.
Earlier this month, Trump signaled he would push for stricter voter identification requirements ahead of the November midterm elections, indicating he may pursue changes even without congressional approval.
The latest lawsuits signal that the battle over election administration—once a largely procedural matter—is now firmly entrenched in the nation’s broader political divide.
