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 Writing for the appellate panel majority, Circuit Judge Andre Mathis said the 1960 civil rights law Justice Department was relying on in its lawsuit seeking to force the production of the data did not cover Michigan’s aggregated voter file.


“Back then, the government used this power to ensure that everyone who had the right to vote could freely exercise that right,” Mathis wrote. “But today, the government invokes Title III for an inverse purpose—to ensure that some people have not voted.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel applauded the ruling, writing in a statement Wednesday, “The federal government continues to show a blatant disregard for voter privacy, but the rule of law has once again prevailed.”

The Justice Department has sued 30 states that have refused to produce their unredacted voter rolls.

In the case before the 6th Circuit, the dispute centered on whether the Justice Department could use provisions of the 1960 Civil Rights Act – which was aimed at pushing back on Jim Crow-era voter discrimination – to obtain voter rolls.

The law gives the attorney general the authority to demand the production of certain voting-related records that “come into” the “possession” of election officials. But the 6th Circuit – joining several other lower courts – concluded that the voter registration files that are assembled and maintained internally by states weren’t among the records the law covers.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn “Benson did not acquire, obtain, or receive the qualified voter file from a third party. Instead, Michigan officials created it themselves,” Mathis wrote in the opinion, which was joined by Circuit Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr. The ruling also said the Justice Department had failed to meet other requirements under the law in making its requests for the data.