By Stacy Robinson

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing Fulton County, Georgia, to obtain voting records from the 2020 election.

The Fulton County suit, filed on Dec. 11, stems from a July resolution passed by the State Election Board of Georgia “calling upon the assistance of the Attorney General to effect compliance with voting transparency.”

In October, the DOJ requested “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

Fulton County officials replied that the records “remain under seal” and would not be produced without a court order.

In 2020, Trump lost Georgia by just under 12,000 votes; the state certified the election for Joe Biden on Nov. 19, 2020, and upheld that result despite multiple recounts.

Trump continued to contest those results, and in August 2023, he and 18 co-defendants were charged with conspiracy, racketeering, and election interference after officials alleged that they plotted to overthrow the results of the 2020 election in that state.

Those charges were dismissed in November, nearly a year after the lead prosecutor on the case was removed for improper conduct.

The DOJ also announced on Dec. 12 that it is taking Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Nevada to court over their failure to comply with previous requests to turn over their voter registration records.

Fourteen other states have recently been hit with similar legal action.

The DOJ said it wants to inspect voter rolls to make sure they are clean and up-to-date.

“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

The requests were sent out following President Donald Trump’s executive order asking the DOJ to verify that states were checking citizenship status for those who registered to vote, in compliance with federal law.

Only Indiana and Wyoming fully complied with the DOJ’s request.

Some states, like Washington, responded by giving only part of the requested information, citing privacy concerns, or legal prohibitions.

“While we will provide the DOJ with the voter registration data that state law already makes public, we will not compromise the privacy of Washington voters by turning over confidential information that both state and federal law prohibit us from disclosing,” Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a statement.

The DOJ in its suits has cited laws such as the National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act, which regulate voter registration and require states to preserve certain voting records after elections.

It also cites Title III of the 1960 Civil Rights Act, which says the states must turn this information over to the U.S. Attorney General upon request.