PROVIDENCE – U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy on Friday dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit aimed at acquiring personal data of nearly 750,000 registered Rhode Island voters from the R.I. Secretary of State's Office.
Calling the request "unprecedented" and a "kind of fishing expedition," McElroy ruled that the justice department lacked the authority under the National Voter Registration Act or the Help America Vote Act.
The motion to dismiss was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Rhode Island Inc. on behalf of Common Cause and three individual voters.
“This administration cannot bully the states,” said Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “It cannot seize voters’ private data. It cannot take over our elections."
John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, added that the court decision “ensures voters are protected from an unauthorized national database that would have been a goldmine for hackers and a tool for intimidation.”
Federal judges have ruled against its similar requests in Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and California.
In December 2025 the DOJ sent a letter to R.I. Secretary of State Gregg M. Amore requesting an electronic copy of the state's unredacted registered voter list, including information such as birth dates, driver's license numbers, and Social Security numbers. Amore declined, offering instead to provide a publicly available roll.
This led to a lawsuit filed against the state to compel the release of the requested information. During a hearing on March 26 DOJ lawyers were unable to justify the need for such sensitive voter information and acknowledged that the data could also be shared with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
On Friday Amore said the ruling “affirms our position” that the attempt was constitutional overreach.
“The United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
Following the ruling, R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha released a statement arguing that the Department of Justice’s action went against its historic role post-Watergate scandal “to protect the public by upholding the rule of law” with “a tradition of operational independence.”
“This isn’t the case anymore,” he said. “The President cannot legally access personally identifiable information within our voter rolls; their maintenance and security remain responsibilities that Congress and the Constitution entrust to the states.”
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com.
