Boston Judge Boots DOJ’s Voter-Data Lawsuit Out the Door

The courthouse air in Boston always feels like marble, toner, and somebody lying into a microphone. This week, the lie wore a suit and carried a subpoena-shaped attitude: the U.S. Department of Justice tried to force Massachusetts to hand over its statewide voter registration list. A federal judge told them to take a seat.

On April 9, 2026, U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin dismissed DOJ’s lawsuit seeking Massachusetts voter rolls. The ruling is the latest setback in a broader push by the Trump administration’s DOJ to collect detailed voter data from states. According to the Associated Press, it is at least the fifth time a judge has rejected similar attempts.

What the judge said, in plain language

DOJ leaned on a 1960 civil rights law that allows the U.S. attorney general to inspect state voter records, but only if the demand includes a statement explaining why the records are being requested and how they will be used.

Translation: Congress built a gate. DOJ tried to climb around it.

Sorokin said the statute requires a statement of why the attorney general demands production of the records, and that statement must be factual, not just a conceivable or possible basis. In this case, the judge found DOJ did not take the necessary steps required under the law. DOJ’s position, in court documents, was that it wanted the data to check Massachusetts’ possible lack of compliance with federal voter registration list requirements, and that it should not have to prove a violation before seeking evidence. Sorokin was not impressed.

Massachusetts calls it a privacy win

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the decision a decisive win for voters and the rule of law, framing it as a defense of voter privacy and election integrity. DOJ, for its part, said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Here is the mechanism: “investigation” as a data pipeline

Here is the mechanism: you label a mass request “inspection,” you skip the safeguards, and you try to turn a civil-rights tool into an all-you-can-eat voter database.

The quiet part: once a government agency gets a reusable dataset, the next fight is never about whether it should exist. It is about who controls it, who gets access, and what new “purposes” magically appear after the fact.

And Massachusetts is not alone. Judges in Michigan, California, Oregon, and Georgia have also dismissed similar DOJ lawsuits, and DOJ has appealed some of those losses.