Trump loses 21st straight court fight over state voter rolls
FILE-President Donald Trump during an event inside Eugene Levy Fieldhouse at Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York on May 22, 2026. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A judge ruled that states do not have to share their records with the federal government, dealing the Trump administration a 21st consecutive court loss tied to their efforts to obtain voter rolls.
President Donald Trump and his administration have pushed to expand federal oversight of elections before the midterms in November.
Reuters reported judges determined that the Constitution gives states responsibility for running federal elections and that federal voting laws don’t require state officials to furnish the records.
RELATED: Justice Department sues 5 more states in push for voter data
Trump has claimed that widespread noncitizen voting favors the Democratic Party, despite state audits and studies proving that noncitizen voting is uncommon.
Reuters launched a probe that revealed 129 individuals have been prosecuted for noncitizen voting since legislation criminalizing it was passed in 1996, and most of the cases were related to voter confusion or miscommunication with election officials.
Separately, the Department of Justice sued over two dozen states that refused to comply with the federal agency’s requests to provide voter rolls containing sensitive information like birthdays and partial Social Security numbers.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has combined its court battles with threats to deny some disaster relief funds from states that do not use a federal system for substantiating voters' citizenship and has attempted to limit who can receive mail ballots.
According to Reuters, the Justice Department's 21 appeals losses since January have come from federal judges nationwide appointed by presidents of both political parties.
DOJ files lawsuits against states for voter data
The backstory:
In 2025, the Department of Justice filed multiple lawsuits against states to obtain its voting data. On Sept. 18, 2025, the agency sued Oregon and Maine because the states failed to submit voter registration lists.
And a week later, the DOJ filed lawsuits against California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania on Sept. 26, 2025, with agency officials accusing the states of not responding adequately to inquiries about how they maintain their voter data.
RELATED: Trump signs order aiming to create national voter list, limit mail-in voting
A few months later, on Dec. 3, 2025, the Justice Department sued Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington State over their "failure" to provide statewide voter registration data.
Last year, approximately 10 Democratic secretaries of state requested that the Trump administration provide more information about its attempts to gain statewide voter registration lists.
The AP noted that the secretaries of state referenced worries that federal agencies allegedly misinformed them and could use the data to verify U.S. citizenship.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by Reuters and previous FOX Local reporting. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.