MADISON, Wis. (CN) - A federal judge on Thursday shot down a lawsuit in which the Trump administration seeks an unredacted copy of Wisconsin's voter registration list, joining recent rulings in other states.

The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to the Wisconsin Elections Commission in June 2025, claiming to have received several tips that the commission may not be complying with the Help America Vote Act.

The department requested an unredacted version of Wisconsin's current voter registration list under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and information about list maintenance procedures.

Unhappy with the redacted list provided, the federal government sued.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Peterson, a Barack Obama appointee, denied the administration's bid to obtain the unredacted list, which would contain either the voters' Social Security or driver's license numbers.

Though the state wielded several arguments against the department's motion to compel, Peterson stopped his analysis on the first - the department simply has no legal right to the unredacted list.

Title III of the Civil Rights Act was enacted to protect the right of Black citizens to vote by allowing the federal government to request records from state election officials for investigatory purposes and requiring those officials to hold on to any records pertaining to voter registration for 22 months.

The Trump administration contended it was entitled to the unredacted voter registration list because it is an election document to be retained by state officials under Title III.

However, Peterson found the language of the statute to exclude records created by the state itself: "The statute requires an election official to retain only records that 'come into his possession.' That phrase is most naturally read as a synonym of 'receive' or 'acquire,' which are not words generally used to describe documents one creates."

He went on to assert that nothing in the statute would appear to require states to preserve every election-related record they create, least of all a living, changing document such as a voter registration list.

In addition to its Title III argument, the commission pointed out in briefs that the federal government did not explain why it needs an unredacted copy of Wisconsin's voter list as opposed to the publicly available redacted version.

This case is one of at least 30 similar lawsuits filed by the Trump administration seeking production of voter registration lists from 48 states, according to Peterson.

The government has made similar arguments across the country, and judges have consistently found its interpretation of Title III would create conflict with other federal voting statutes.

Peterson pointed in his opinion to HAVA and the National Voter Registration Act, which require election officials to alter voter registration lists by regularly updating them, while Title III threatens officials with incarceration for the same practice.

"The government's reading of title III creates a nonsensical scenario in which state election officials could be fined or imprisoned for doing something that federal law requires them to do," Peterson said.

Doug Poland, director of litigation at Law Forward, said in a press release that requiring Wisconsin to disclose the sensitive identifying information contained in the unredacted voter roll would have been disastrous for personal privacy.

"Given the rarity of noncitizen voting, this lawsuit, and similar efforts in other states, are thinly masked efforts to manipulate and subvert future elections," Poland said. "The court recognized this as an illegal attempt to gather and weaponize data on Americans, dressed up in the language of voting rights enforcement."

The organization went on to suggest the federal government had plans to create a master database of every American who has ever voted, though officials are apparently unsure whether this would be legal.

According to the State Democracy Research Initiative, eight federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department's suits on the merits. One state, Oklahoma, entered into a settlement agreement where it provided its unredacted data in exchange for the lawsuit being dropped.

Neither party could be immediately reached for comment.

Source: Courthouse News Service