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A Trump-appointed judge tossed DOJ's demand for Utah voters' private data. It's DOJ's 27th straight loss.

Judge David Barlow dismissed the case with prejudice, 10 days before Election Day.

A Trump-appointed judge tossed DOJ's demand for Utah voters' private data. It's DOJ's 27th straight loss.
Stock photo. Photo by Michael Hart on Unsplash

A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump threw out the Justice Department's lawsuit demanding Utah's full, unredacted voter list on Friday, Oct. 23, ruling that the law DOJ relied on doesn't reach it.

U.S. District Judge David Barlow dismissed the case, United States v. Henderson, No. 2:26-cv-00166 in the District of Utah, with prejudice, meaning DOJ can't refile it there, and denied its motion to force Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Utah's Republican elections chief, to hand over the data.

What DOJ wanted

DOJ sued in February after Henderson withheld the private parts of the voter file: dates of birth, driver's license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers, KSL reported. Henderson offered DOJ the public voter list instead and argued state privacy law barred her from sharing the rest. In September, DOJ told her in a letter that she was under investigation for refusing, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

What the judge decided

DOJ invoked Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which lets the attorney general inspect election records that "come into" an election officer's possession. Barlow ruled that Utah's voter list doesn't qualify because Henderson's office creates and maintains it. He wrote that the list is "not a record or paper which 'comes into [the Utah Lieutenant Governor's] possession.'" He added that Title III "was intended to address voter suppression," and he found that letting DOJ amend its complaint would be "futile."

Henderson said the ruling ended a lawsuit that "sought to force us to disclose the private data of every Utah voter." DOJ did not immediately respond to KSL's request for comment, and it hasn't said whether it will appeal.

A losing streak

DOJ has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for voter data, CBS News reported, and it lost 26 of those cases before Utah. Henderson marked the ruling on Threads with "0-27." The 6th Circuit has already upheld DOJ's loss in Michigan, and Democracy Docket reports that cases in Hawaii and Idaho are on hold pending DOJ's 9th Circuit appeals.

Ten days before Election Day, Utah voters' birth dates and ID numbers stay out of federal hands. We applaud Henderson for refusing to hand them over. A lawsuit says DHS has already mixed voter files with data-broker records and flagged citizens as unlawful voters.

Sources

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