APPEALS Court Slaps DOJ — Michigan SAYS NO!

Department of Justice sign on a building.

Michigan just won another round in a fight that could reshape who controls American elections.

Quick Take

The Sixth United States Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the Trump administration from getting Michigan’s unredacted voter rolls.
The court said the Civil Rights Act of 1960 does not clearly give the Justice Department that power.
The case has become part of a wider battle over state election control, voter privacy, and federal reach.
The Justice Department has now lost every resolved trial court case in this fight.

Why the Appeals Court Rejected the Demand

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld a lower court ruling that stopped the Justice Department from getting Michigan’s full voter registration database. The data at issue includes names, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers. Judges said the law the department cited does not clearly cover that kind of state-created record, and they were not persuaded by the government’s broad reading of the statute.^[4]^[5]

🔴 6th Circuit blocks Trump DOJ demand for Michigan's full voter rolls

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled 2-1 Wednesday that the Justice Department lacks legal authority to obtain Michigan's unredacted voter registration list, which contains names, birth dates,… pic.twitter.com/7rraE8N4Hp

— NewsTongue (@NewsTongueX) June 24, 2026

The Justice Department said it needed the records to check whether states were keeping voter rolls clean under federal law. Michigan said the request went too far and would expose sensitive personal information that voters never agreed to hand over in bulk. Reuters reported that at least 17 Republican-led states had shared data, while many others resisted on privacy grounds.

What the Judges Said About the Law

Judge Hala Jarbou, appointed by President Trump in his first term, had already ruled that federal voting laws did not require Michigan to turn over the records. She said the Help America Vote Act, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Civil Rights Act did not give the United States the right to obtain the voting records in this form. She also warned that a broad reading of the National Voter Registration Act could burden the right to vote.^[3]

The appeals court agreed with that basic result. One report said the panel found that Title III of the Civil Rights Act has narrow text that cannot support the government’s broad request. Another account quoted the judges pressing the Justice Department on the phrase “come into possession,” showing the court’s concern that the agency was stretching language that was never written for this purpose.^[1]^[2]

Why This Fight Goes Beyond Michigan

This case matters because it is not just about one state. The Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., seeking access to unredacted voter records, and nine of those lawsuits had already been dismissed before this ruling. State officials and voting rights groups say the government is building a national system that could be used to flag voters, share data across agencies, and pressure states to purge names from rolls.

The deeper conflict is about trust. Supporters of the Justice Department say it is trying to protect election integrity and find ineligible registrations. Critics say the pattern looks like federal overreach, especially after reports that the department also linked the data effort to hunting undocumented immigrants. That mix of election law, privacy, and immigration enforcement is why the fight has drawn sharp resistance from both state officials and civil liberties groups.