By Matthew Vadum

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Jan. 6 that it is suing Arizona and Connecticut for allegedly failing to turn over their full voter registration rolls for federal inspection.

The two new federal lawsuits, which say the two states are hindering federal oversight that is intended to stop election fraud and ensure voter lists accuracy, bring the department’s nationwide total to 23 states plus the District of Columbia.

Before the most recent lawsuits were filed, the DOJ on Dec. 18, 2025, filed lawsuits against Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, alleging they failed to produce voter registration lists upon request. Earlier the same month, the DOJ filed similar lawsuits against Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington state, also for allegedly not producing the lists upon request.

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said on Jan. 6 that the DOJ will continue to file lawsuits “to protect American elections.”

“Accurate voter rolls are the foundation of election integrity, and any state that fails to meet this basic obligation of transparency can expect to see us in court,” Bondi said in a statement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division added the department “is committed to safeguarding fair and free elections, and will hold states accountable when they refuse to respect our federal elections laws.”

The lawsuits state that the U.S. attorney general is responsible for enforcing the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, which Congress passed to make sure states have effective voter registration and voter list maintenance programs. The U.S. attorney general also enforces the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which allows her to demand that states produce statewide voter registration lists.

The Arizona lawsuit states that Bondi asked Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in July 2025 to produce a copy of his state’s voter registration list within 14 days.

Fontes responded, saying he could not comply with the 14-day deadline, and Bondi gave him an extension to September 2025. Two weeks before the new deadline, Fontes informed Bondi that he could not comply because doing so would violate state and federal privacy laws, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges Fontes’s refusal to produce the requested records violates the information-production provisions of the Civil Rights Act. The lawsuit asks the court to order Fontes to produce the records.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose office represents state officials in lawsuits. No reply was received by publication time.

Fontes said in a statement on Dec. 19, 2025, that he declined to hand over the voter rolls to the DOJ out of voter privacy concerns.

“Arizona voters also have important privacy rights that cannot be infringed because they choose to exercise their constitutionally protected voting rights,” he said.

The Connecticut lawsuit states that in August 2025 Bondi asked Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas to produce the state’s voter registration list. Thomas handed over some of the requested data and said more data would follow, but she did not send more information.

Bondi sent a letter in December 2025 demanding the list. Later that month, Thomas responded, saying that she could not comply because Connecticut law forbids her from releasing the information sought.

The lawsuit says that Thomas’s failure to hand over the list violates the information-production provisions of the Civil Rights Act, and asks the court to compel Thomas to do so.

Thomas said she was not surprised that Connecticut has been “added to the long list of states being sued on these grounds.”

She told The Epoch Times that as secretary of state, her “foremost responsibility” is to Connecticut voters “who entrust the state and their local election officials with sensitive data so they can participate in our representative democracy without fear that their information will be misused or exposed.”

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said that Connecticut obeys federal laws and that he was disappointed that his state is being sued.

“We tried to work cooperatively with DOJ to understand the basis for their request for our voters’ sensitive personal information. Rather than communicating productively with us, they rushed to sue,” Tong told The Epoch Times.