BOSTON — The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project today filed two sets of legal papers aimed at rebuffing an aggressive effort by the Trump administration to gain access to sensitive data on millions of voters in the Commonwealth.
The case, United States v. Galvin, originated late last year when the U.S. Department of Justice sued Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin after he refused to turn over unredacted voter rolls containing highly sensitive information, including full names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s licenses numbers, and partial Social Security numbers.
In early January, the U.S. District Court in Boston allowed the ACLU to intervene in the case on behalf of an individual voter, Juan Pablo Jaramillo of Revere, and two groups with interests in protecting enfranchisement and voters’ data privacy, Common Cause and Jane Doe Inc.
In the new filings, they argue that the DOJ does not have a legal right to obtain the complete, unredacted voter rolls it demands and that it cannot be trusted with such sensitive information, given the Trump administration’s brazen efforts to undermine election integrity. Extensive reporting suggests that the Trump administration wants to aggregate state voter information into a national database to disenfranchise voters.
“In word and deed, this administration has demonstrated it wants to restrict voting access, limit participation in upcoming elections, and subvert public confidence in the results. We cannot let that happen,” said Jessie Rossman, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Voting is the ‘preservative of all other rights’ precisely because it serves as a check against tyranny. Today, we are asking the court to reject the administration’s dangerous and unlawful effort to undermine this fundamental right, which is the cornerstone of our democracy.”
The DOJ’s attempted data grab in Massachusetts is part of a nationwide effort by the Trump administration, which has filed similar lawsuits in 23 states plus the District of Columbia. In recent weeks, federal courts in Oregon and California have rejected the administration’s efforts to obtain unredacted voter rolls in those states.
Yet the DOJ has continued to exert pressure. Last week, hours after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz suggesting that the administration would remove ICE agents from the state if he turned over unredacted voter rolls. And on Monday, President Trump issued a call during a podcast interview to “nationalize the voting.”
“The DOJ’s pressure campaign and cascade of lawsuits — which have now been filed against nearly half the states in the nation — are a transparent attempt to intimidate voters and to build a false narrative that shakes the public trust in election results,” said Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “We are proud to be leading the fight to protect voter privacy and safeguard citizens’ fundamental right to participate in our democratic process.”
The DOJ has attempted to justify its demands under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which lays out procedures for the federal government to investigate local jurisdictions for irregularities in voter registrations. That law, which was enacted during the Jim Crow era to expand the franchise and protect voting access for racial minorities, requires the administration to clearly articulate both the basis and the purpose of its data requests. The papers filed today assert that the Trump administration has failed to satisfy this statutory requirement. The administration is also perverting the purpose of the law by using it to undermine, rather than protect, voting rights.
Voters and voting rights groups involved in the case shared the following comments:
Geoff Foster, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts: “The Department of Justice has no valid reason to collect sensitive personal data on millions of voters across the Commonwealth. It’s clear the administration wants to use this information to fabricate false claims and conspiracy theories. We are standing up to reject these demands and protect the rights and privacy of Commonwealth voters.”
Juan Pablo Jaramillo, a resident of Revere: "Our representative democracy can only be secured as safe, fair, and transparent for all — particularly working class voters — if states' electoral processes are free of pressure from the federal government and we can preserve the most vital civic right, the right to vote, for U.S. citizens with a broad range of opinions and ideas. That is how we've maintained the strength and health of our republic for 250 years. Given the onslaught of assertions by the Trump Administration threatening the citizenship rights of naturalized citizens like me, it is vital that I join this case to fight for the voting rights, personal privacy, and the rule of law guaranteed by our constitution, not just for naturalized citizens, but for all citizens."
Hema Sarang-Sieminski, executive director of Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts coalition against domestic violence and sexual assault: "Survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence encounter unique obstacles when voting, including safety and privacy concerns. The administration’s demand for this information via unredacted voter rolls is a direct threat to survivor safety, exposing sensitive information with the potential to retraumatize survivors and exclude them from the voting process altogether. This is an unprecedented violation and incredibly dangerous, and the court must put a stop to it.”
Read the Motion to Dismiss here.
Read the Opposition to the United States’ Motion to Compel here.
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