MD elections official expects ‘favorable ruling’ in DOJ suit seeking voter data

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Maryland’s elections administrator walked out of federal court Wednesday expecting “a favorable ruling” after the Trump administration tried to argue why a judge shouldn’t throw out its lawsuit seeking unredacted voter data from the state, as judges have ruled in several other states.

After an hourlong hearing where a Department of Justice lawyer echoed the arguments in the eight dismissed cases, U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher did not immediately hand down a decision, saying she would instead issue a written opinion. Gallagher was nominated to her post by Donald Trump during his first presidency.

“The DOJ did not articulate any sort of reasonable requests, or purpose behind the request, and that was proven today,” state Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis, the sole defendant in the case, said after the hearing.

“I think that we’ve done a fantastic job as to providing the court with reasons as to why the federal government should not have access to this list,” which contains unredacted addresses, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers for registered voters, DeMarinis said outside of the federal courthouse in Baltimore.

“They need to tell us the reason why they’re doing this,” he said. “Until they articulate those, I’m going to protect Maryland voters and their privacy.”

Throughout Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has sent letters to election officials in at least 48 states, including Maryland, and Washington, D.C., demanding their unredacted voter registration data. Officials in over a dozen states have either voluntarily complied with the demands or said they would, according to the Brennan Center for Justice’s request tracker.  The Justice Department has taken to court D.C. and 30 states, including Maryland, that resisted the demands. Eight district court judges have granted motions to dismiss the lawsuits; none have ruled in favor of the government. The Justice Department has appealed all of the dismissals.

William F. Mohrman, a recent hire at the Justice Department’s voting section who, while in private practice, was active in multiple lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, argued for the Trump administration. His arguments echoed the Justice Department’s novel interpretation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which sets out requirements for computerized state election databases, and Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which allows the federal government to demand certain records preserved by states about a given election if the attorney general provides “a statement of the basis and the purpose therefore.”

He argued that because those laws, as well as the National Voter Registration Act, are now codified together, they should be read as “one statutory structure.” And while the state has argued that the Civil Rights Act only refers to documents that come into the state’s possession, Mohrman argued that the latter statute required documents that are generated by the state, like its voter registration list.

“There have been a number of courts to have considered that issue, and none have so far ruled in the government’s favor,” Gallagher said at the outset of Wednesday’s hearing, asking if Department of Justice attorneys had “any additional authority to provide at this point.”

“No,” Mohrman replied. “We disagree with the decisions in those district courts.”

Grilled by Gallagher over what the records would be used for, Mohrman said the Justice Department “wants to assure that that there’s been proper compliance” with the standards set out in the 2002 law. When asked by Gallagher if he was disavowing the Justice Department’s statements in its other voter data cases that the records would be shared with the Department of Homeland Security, he didn’t provide a clear answer, but said the data could be “run through” other federal records.

“I’m not going to get into the details … the attorney general is going to take the list, and one of the things the things the attorney general is going to try to figure out is whether or not there’s people on that list that are ineligible to vote,” he said, adding that the government would compare the voter records to other federal databases to do so.

Asked by Gallagher if, in his view, there were no constraints on what government could do with the records once requested, he said there were “legal constraints” set out by federal laws like the Privacy Act, and that the Justice Department is “going to comply with federal law in its handling of these records.” He said that Maryland’s state privacy protections wouldn’t apply.