In a reversal of a months-long pattern of state government seeking civil legal relief against the Feds, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has now sued the State of Maine over its refusal to turn over voter registration information.
The lawsuit alleges that Maine and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows have violated several federal laws, including the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA).
These alleged violations are said to stem from Secretary Bellows refusal “to provide data regarding the removal of ineligible individuals and to produce an unredacted, computerized state voter registration list.”
A Tuesday press release from the DOJ also noted that a case has been brought against Oregon on similar grounds.
“States simply cannot pick and choose which federal laws they will comply with, including our voting laws, which ensure that all American citizens have equal access to the ballot in federal elections,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“American citizens have a right to feel confident in the integrity of our electoral process,” Dhillon said, “and the refusal of certain states to protect their citizens against vote dilution will result in legal consequences.”
Bellows has since responded to this move in a statement emailed to the Portland Press Herald, emphasizing that Maine is not the only state “fighting back” against this directive.
“Maine has some of the best elections in the nation,” Bellows said. “It is absurd that the Department of Justice is targeting our state when Republican and Democratic Secretaries all across the country are fighting back against this federal abuse of power just like we are.”
When first asked to turn over the state’s voter rolls in late July, Bellows told the Trump Administration’s DOJ to “go jump in the Gulf of Maine.”
In asking for the state’s complete voter registration list dating back to November 2022, the DOJ said that they want “to ensure that ineligible voters are being removed.”
“Please provide a description of the steps that Maine has taken, and when those steps were taken, to identify registered voters who are ineligible to vote as well as the procedures it used to remove those ineligible voters from the registration list,” the DOJ’s letter reportedly said.
The Civil Rights Division of the DOJ has also reportedly asked the state to share its complete voter registration list, the names of officials who handle the list’s maintenance, and the number of ineligible voters the state identified due to noncitizenship, as well as other information about the state’s election processes.
“The Gulf of Maine is awfully cold, but maybe that’s what the DOJ needs to cool down,” Secretary Bellows, who is also running for governor in 2026, said in response to the Trump Administration’s request. “So, here’s my answer to Trump’s DOJ today: go jump in the Gulf of Maine.”
Mid-August, Bellows followed up this statement with a more formal denial of their request.
“Given the surprising — indeed, to our knowledge, unprecedented — scope of DOJ’s requests for information and records, I ask that DOJ please provide an explanation of why it is making these request to Maine,” she wrote.
Bellows then details how Maine engages in “systematic maintenance of the central voter registration system,” pushing back on the idea that the state does not make a “reasonable effort” to remove the names of ineligible voters.
Earlier this month, Bellows doubled-down on her refusal to turn over the state’s voter registration information.
[RELATED: Shenna Bellows Continues to Reject the DOJ’s Request for Maine’s Voter Registration Data]
In this second letter, she maintains this position, questioning the request’s compliance with federal law and raising concerns about the implications that turning this data over would have for Mainers’ privacy.
According to Maine Public, the DOJ had previously told Bellows that all information shared with them would be kept secure but argued that federal law preempts state privacy laws.
At the time, the DOJ had asked about two dozen states for voter registration information as part of a broader effort to ensure election integrity nationwide.
Assistant Attorney General Dhillon posted about the lawsuit on X late Tuesday night, appearing to reference Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) now-infamous comment to President Donald Trump (R) earlier this year.
“Yesss see you in court, Maine! comedy hour is over !” she wrote, responding to a post from Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Jesus Osete.
