Federal judge strikes down DOJ voter-list program that took Alaska's full voter rolls

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday struck down the Justice Department program that received Alaska's complete voter list last December, ruling that it broke federal law.

The lieutenant governor's office announced that it sent the Justice Department the full list on Dec. 23, including names, dates of birth, home addresses, and driver's license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Under Alaska's agreement, which the ruling cites as an example, the Justice Department could share the list with a contractor, and the state agreed to remove voters the department flagged as noncitizens within 45 days of being notified.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, ruling for Common Cause and four voters, set aside the program, known as the Voter List Maintenance Policy, nationwide. Her opinion found it unlawful four ways: the three voting laws the Justice Department cited do not authorize it, it is arbitrary and capricious, and it violates both the federal Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act.

The opinion says the department asked 49 states and the District of Columbia for their unredacted voter lists, and at least 18 states fully cooperated. The department shared the lists with the Department of Homeland Security to check against a modified citizenship database. The judge found that database inaccurate: a 2006 Social Security audit found that 7% of the people the agency listed as noncitizens, about 3.3 million, were citizens, and the opinion says the Justice Department knew the database could not accurately identify some citizens. The policy, she wrote, "has removed United States citizens from the voter rolls in their home states and risks disenfranchising many more."

"Behind all the window dressing, the challenged policy represents the federal government's attempt to decide who gets to vote," Sooknanan wrote. "And to state the obvious, the Court's decision does not pave the way for ineligible voters to vote in our elections."

In Alaska, the transfer has been contested in the Legislature and in court. The state cited a law allowing it to share confidential voter information with a federal agency that uses it only for government purposes authorized by law. "Alaska is committed to the integrity of our elections and to complying with applicable law," Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom said in December, adding that the division provided the list "in consultation with the Department of Law" and "in accordance with federal requirements and state authority." In a Feb. 24 memo, Legislative Counsel Andrew Dunmire told Sen. Scott Kawasaki, chair of Senate State Affairs, that given three federal court opinions in other states' cases, "it appears that the division unjustifiably relied on AS 15.07.195(c)(1) when it gave confidential information to the DOJ."

The records do not show whether the Justice Department ever sent Alaska a list of flagged voters. The roughly 3,000 voters the Division of Elections made inactive this summer were flagged through a check against state DMV records, Alaska News reported.

The judge said a separate order will follow. A lawsuit filed in April against the Division of Elections on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Alaska and the Alaska Black Caucus asks a court to require the Justice Department to destroy its copies of the Alaska list, void the agreement and bar future transfers of Alaska voter data.