06/24/2026
Appeals court sides with Benson, Michigan in voter-records fight with Trump DOJ
LANSING — Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson won another round Wednesday in a high-stakes legal fight over whether President Donald Trump’s Justice Department can force the state to turn over sensitive voter-roll information on millions of registered voters.
In a 2-1 decision issued June 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a February ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou in Grand Rapids, finding that federal law does not give the government the authority to demand Michigan’s full, unredacted qualified voter file. The case is United States v. Benson, No. 26-1225.
The Justice Department had sought not only the names on Michigan’s voter rolls, but also dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers for every registered voter in the state. Benson turned over the public version of Michigan’s statewide voter list but refused to provide the confidential data, saying the federal government had no legal authority to demand it.
Writing for the majority, Judge Andre Mathis said the Civil Rights Act of 1960 was passed to help fight voter discrimination, not to give the federal government sweeping power to collect modern state voter databases. The court said Title III’s “narrow text” could not support “the government’s broad request.” Judges Mathis and R. Guy Cole formed the majority, while Judge John Nalbandian dissented.
The ruling leaves in place Jarbou’s February dismissal of the Justice Department’s lawsuit. Jarbou had found that the federal laws cited by the government — the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act — did not require Michigan to surrender the records at issue.
At the center of the dispute is Michigan’s qualified voter file, the statewide database used to administer voter registration and elections. The Sixth Circuit said Michigan officials created and maintain that file under state law, and that the database is not the kind of record the federal government can demand under Title III. The opinion noted the file can include names, addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license or state ID numbers, jurisdictional information, voting history and, in some cases, digitized signatures.
Nalbandian, in dissent, said he believed Michigan’s voter file should fall within the reach of Title III because it is built from underlying records that come into the state’s possession. He also disagreed with the majority’s conclusion that the Justice Department had not properly justified its request.
The Michigan case is part of a broader national push by the Trump administration to obtain voter-roll data from states. Reuters reported the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., seeking unredacted voter lists, and that Wednesday’s ruling was the first appellate-level decision in that effort. The administration has argued the records are needed to check whether states are removing ineligible voters, while states and voting-rights groups have raised privacy, data-security and federal-overreach concerns.
The Associated Press reported the administration has faced similar losses in cases involving Maryland, Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, with a Georgia case dismissed on procedural grounds. AP also reported that at least 13 states have agreed to provide, or have already provided, voter registration lists to the federal government.
For Benson, a Democrat running for governor in 2026, the decision marks another legal victory in years of disputes over Michigan’s voter rolls and election administration. Benson is on the ballot in the Democratic primary for governor, according to Ballotpedia.
The Justice Department could ask the full Sixth Circuit to rehear the case or seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court. For now, Michigan does not have to hand over the confidential voter data sought by the federal government.
By: Tom Manke
