HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Officials in Connecticut and Arizona are defending their decision to refuse a request by the U.S. Justice Department for detailed voter information, after their states became the latest to face federal lawsuits over the issue.
“Pound sand,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes posted on X, saying the release of the voter records would violate state and federal law.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced this week it was suing Connecticut and Arizona for failing to comply with its requests, bringing to 23 the number of states the department has sued to obtain the data. It also has filed suit against the District of Columbia.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department will “continue filing lawsuits to protect American elections,” saying accurate voter rolls are the ”foundation of election integrity.”
Secretaries of state and state attorneys general who have pushed back against the effort say it violates federal privacy law, which protects the sharing of individual data with the government, and would run afoul of their own state laws that restrict what voter information can be released publicly. Some of the data the Justice Department is seeking includes names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
Other requests included basic questions about the procedures states use to comply with federal voting laws, while some have been more state-specific. They have referenced perceived inconsistencies from a survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Most of the lawsuits target states led by Democrats, who have said they have been unable to get a firm answer about why the Justice Department wants the information and how it plans to use it. Last fall, 10 Democratic secretaries of state sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security expressing concern after DHS said it had received voter data and would enter it into a federal program used to verify citizenship status.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, said his state had tried to “work cooperatively” with the Justice Department to understand the basis for its request for voters’ personal information.
“Rather than communicating productively with us, they rushed to sue,” Tong said Tuesday, after the lawsuit was filed.
Connecticut, he said, “takes its obligations under federal laws very seriously.” He pledged to “vigorously defend the state against this meritless and deeply disappointing lawsuit.”
Two Republican state senators in Connecticut said they welcomed the federal lawsuit. They said a recent absentee ballot scandal in the state’s largest city, Bridgeport, had made the state a “national punchline.”