Voting Rights Groups Successfully Block Discriminatory Alabama Congressional Map

PORTLAND, Maine – A U.S. district court today dismissed the federal government’s lawsuit demanding Maine’s unredacted voter file. The unredacted voter file includes many sensitive details about Maine voters, including birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and parts of social security numbers. The court ruled the demand for unredacted voter information – with no clear explanation for how it would be used or why it was requested – violated the language and purpose of federal voting law and state privacy law. The case, United States v. Bellows, originated in September 2025 when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the secretary of state for declining an initial request for the unredacted voter information. The ACLU of Maine filed a friend-of-the-court brief and participated in oral arguments before the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine in March 2026. The court wrote that allowing the federal government to construe the Civil Rights Act of 1960 – which was "enacted as strong medicine to address the stubborn ill of racial discrimination in voting booths across the Jim Crow South" – in this way "would take a sledgehammer to the balance Congress struck when it required states to create and maintain computerized lists of registered voters in the first place." The court also noted it could not "turn a blind eye to traditional principles of federalism and how those principles have found expression in American elections.” Federal voting rights laws, such as the National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act, were designed to create free, fair, and secure elections. They expanded and continue to protect voting rights for all – including communities historically targeted by voter suppression efforts – and ensure public confidence in elections. Additionally, Maine state privacy law includes robust protections to keep sensitive personal information safe. “Maine voters have shared this sensitive information so they can exercise their right to vote, but they never agreed to let the federal government access that information and ignore the law,” said Zach Heiden, chief counsel at the ACLU of Maine. “The federal government’s attempted overreach can undermine voter trust and data privacy. Eroding trust in elections can depress voter turnout and serve as the basis for patently false and dangerous claims. Our federal laws were designed to expand and protect voting rights for all. We are pleased the court has upheld Maine people’s voting and privacy rights so voters can remain confident that their personal information is secure, and our elections are free and fair.” “This ruling is yet another rejection of the Trump administration’s attempts to abuse federal power to gain access to sensitive voter data without legal justification,” said Theresa J. Lee, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “The Department of Justice should spend its time protecting our democracy — not enabling federal overreach or undermining trust in our elections.” DOJ has made similar demands for unredacted voter files throughout the country, and the ACLU has engaged in over 20 related cases, including United States v. Bellows. The order is available here: https://www.aclumaine.org/cases/united-states-v-bellows-protecting-sensitive-voter-data/?document=US-District-Court-Order-to-Dismiss

MADISON, Wis. — In a major victory for voters, a federal court has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit — an unprecedented overreach into state election administration — seeking to force Wisconsin to hand over the complete, unredacted electronic voter registration list of every voter in the state. The ruling in United States v. Wisconsin Elections Commission ends the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) unlawful attempt to invoke a 1960 civil rights law to compel Wisconsin to turn over sensitive personal voter data, including partial Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers. State and federal laws prohibit the release of this information. Attorneys from Law Forward, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, and the national ACLU, represented Common Cause and a group of individual Wisconsin voters in the case. “Today’s ruling is a massive victory for voter privacy and a rejection of federal overreach. The decision ensures voters are protected from an unauthorized national database that would have been a goldmine for hackers and a tool for intimidation. Our elections remain safe, secure, and in the hands of Wisconsinites where they belong,” said Bianca Shaw, Common Cause’s Wisconsin state director. “Requiring Wisconsin to disclose this sensitive personal information despite laws prohibiting just that would have threatened the privacy of Wisconsin voters and the removal of eligible voters from voter rolls for no reason," said Doug Poland, Law Forward's director of litigation. “Federal law leaves it to states to administer their own elections, and Wisconsin already has reliable processes for maintaining its voter rolls. Given the rarity of noncitizen voting, this lawsuit, and similar efforts in other states, are thinly-masked efforts to manipulate and subvert future elections. The court recognized this as an illegal attempt to gather and weaponize data on Americans, dressed up in the language of voting rights enforcement. We will continue to stand up to the Trump administration’s illegal schemes to interfere with elections administration and erode the rights of voters in Wisconsin.” “The court today affirmed what we already know to be true: confidential voter data is protected under the law, and the DOJ can’t just unlawfully order WEC to hand over that information for political purposes,” said Ryan Cox, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “This ruling protects against federal intrusions into Wisconsin’s election system, ensures private voter data is safe from abuse, and prevents the Trump administration from playing politics with our right to vote.” “This ruling is a victory for all Wisconsin voters,” said Jonathan Topaz, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “To date, eight courts have issued merits rulings in the Trump administration’s cookie-cutter lawsuits demanding sensitive personal data from millions of voters across the country, and the administration has lost all eight. The administration is seeking this data for pretextual purposes as it attempts to build an illegal voter database to try to intimidate eligible voters, including in Wisconsin, and remove them from the rolls. We won't let them." The groups argued that the administration's stated rationale — routine voter list maintenance — was a pretext, and that the DOJ had already shared state voter data with election-denier advocacy groups. In a Minnesota hearing earlier this year, DOJ admitted it did not know whether the administration could use voter files to build a comprehensive database of every American who has ever voted. The brief also argued that even a valid DOJ demand would not entitle the government to unredacted records, and that courts have consistently required redactions to protect voters' constitutional rights. The Trump administration has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for voter lists. According to the State Democracy Research Initiative, to date, eight federal district courts have dismissed the Justice Department's suits on the merits including courts in California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arizona, and Maine. The Wisconsin federal court's decision follows those rulings, which rejected materially identical DOJ demands. The ruling is here: https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2026/05/89-Dismissal-order.pdf

On behalf of the League of Women Voters of Alaska, the Alaska Black Caucus, and the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, the ACLU of Alaska, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a lawsuit against the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska and the Director of Alaska’s Division of Elections over the state’s compliance with the U.S. Department of Justice’s request for Alaska’s full, unredacted voter file. The Department of Justice demanded the complete voter record, which includes voters’ sensitive personal data, such as drivers’ license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court yesterday vacated Alabama’s current court-ordered congressional map, despite the fact that voting has already begun in the state’s May 19 primary election. The Supreme Court’s order creates a path for Alabama to reinstate a 2023 map that a district court ruled was unconstitutional and intentionally discriminatory. The case was returned to the district court for it to reexamine its prior decision in light of the devastating and profoundly flawed ruling in Louisiana v. Callais in which the court eviscerated much of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Therefore, the plaintiffs in Milligan v. Allen returned to the district court yesterday to ask for a temporary restraining order to keep the current court-ordered map in place on the claim Callais left untouched: the court’s finding that Alabama intentionally discriminated against Black voters when it drew the 2023 map. Plaintiffs are asking the court to keep the current court-ordered map because people are already voting under it. In 2021, Milligan plaintiffs challenged a 2021 Alabama congressional map that unlawfully diluted Black political power. In 2023, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling striking down the 2021 map. That same year, the Alabama Legislature drew another map. After weeks of trial, the district court ruled that Alabama’s 2023 map had a discriminatory result in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and that the Legislature had intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The court struck down the 2023 map and ordered the use of Alabama’s current court-drawn congressional map. This map was used in the 2024 election, and voters have already cast ballots with it in Alabama’s ongoing 2026 primary elections. The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday temporarily removes the current court-ordered congressional map and comes on the heels of Callais, which gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and struck down a remedial map with two majority-Black districts enacted by the Louisiana Legislature. But Callais did not involve a constitutional intentional discrimination claim and the court’s ruling did not affect claims of intentional discrimination — the separate, independent ground on which the district court struck down Alabama's 2023 map. That finding in the Alabama case remains wholly untouched. The plaintiffs in the Milligan case are Evan Milligan, Khadidah Stone, Letetia Jackson, Shalela Dowdy, Greater Birmingham Ministries, and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, who are represented by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Alabama, Hogan Lovells LLP, and Wiggins, Childs, Pantazis, Fisher & Goldfarb. In response to yesterday’s order, plaintiffs and counsel issued the following statement: “The Supreme Court’s action is the latest in a pattern of decisions that undermine the rights of Black voters. The court’s decision is designed to entrench power in the hands of the few at the expense of Black voters who have been denied equal rights at every turn. It also flies in the face of the decision it issued in this case less than three years ago. This order is also contrary to longstanding precedent that has, until yesterday, forbidden changing the rules too close to an election. With voting already underway, the court has created chaos for Alabama election officials and voters. “In 2023, the Alabama Legislature intentionally sought to deny Black voters fair representation in government. Permitting Alabama to use, for the very first time, the 2023 map in elections when voters have already legally cast ballots is an affront to the very ideals of democracy. The Supreme Court’s order rushes to displace the remedial map approved by the district court, and paves the way for Alabama to implement an extreme gerrymandered map that violates the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. “We have already returned to court to reinstate the court-ordered map, and we will keep fighting on every front to protect the rights of Black voters in Alabama.” The TRO filing is here.