Trump administration sues Oregon to force it to turn over full information about every state voter

The Trump administration sued Oregon and Secretary of State Tobias Read on Tuesday to force them to turn over detailed information about each of the state’s voters.

The suit, filed in federal district court in Eugene, demands that Read and his elections division better explain how they ensure accuracy of the state’s voter rolls – and that they turn over information about every registered Oregon voter, including full date of birth and driver’s license number or partial Social Security number.

The lawsuit repeats many of the same legal arguments and facts that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice and Read’s legal team have deployed in a testy exchange of claims and counterclaims about voter legitimacy and privacy over the past two months.

Under the U.S. Constitution, states “must safeguard American elections in compliance with Federal laws that protect Americans’ voting rights and guard against dilution by illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and Error,” the lawsuit says, quoting from an executive order Trump issued in March.

Read responded in August to Trump administration demands for personal voter information by saying neither state nor federal law permits Read to provide it. Oregon law protects Oregonians’ personal information, and federal civil rights rules granting federal officials some access to that information only apply if a state is accused of blocking voter access to the ballot, Read said.

On Tuesday, before he had seen a copy of the suit, Read said in a statement, “If the president wants to use the (Department of Justice) to go after his political opponents and undermine our elections, I look forward to seeing them in court. I stand by my oath to the people of Oregon, and I will protect their rights and privacy.”

Asked about some detailed demands in the suit late Tuesday, including that the Trump administration needs of full copy of the voter list to allow it to effectively assess whether the state is keeping ineligible voters from the ballot, Read spokesperson Tess Segar told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the office was still reviewing the lawsuit, but likely wouldn’t be able to comment on the “merits of the case” while the suit is pending.

“We have received the lawsuit and are working on a response with the Oregon (Department of Justice),” she wrote in an email.

The federal administration’s latest salvo is part of its larger effort to try to prove that voting by non-citizens or other forms of voter fraud are widespread, something numerous investigations have disproven. In Oregon, under Republican Secretary of State Dennis Richardson, the state determined only 10 voters out of more than 2 million registered had cast ballots inappropriately in the 2016 presidential election, almost all by voting in both Oregon and another state. The most serious case was settled with a $1,000 fine and 10 hours of community service.

Election officials in some Republican-led states have agreed to provide full voter information to the federal government. But others have raised cautions.

When Read refused to provide the federal justice department with Oregon voter details, he also informed its lawyers that they, like “any person,” could simply fill out an online request form, pay $500 and get an electronic copy of public records showing the name, year of birth, address, political party and voting history of every registered Oregon voter along with data on many Oregonians whose voter registrations have lapsed.

The key difference: Those readily available public records do not include any Oregonian’s full date of birth, driver’s license number or partial Social Security number.

So far, the federal administration has not filled out that request or paid the $500, Segar said Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which also sued Maine on Tuesday to obtain its full voter list, noted both Oregon and Maine provided a private group with the same detailed information about voters that the Trump administration is seeking. That nonprofit organization, the Electronic Registration Information Center, was formed to help improve voter registration accuracy. Supported by member states, it uses Social Security death data and other records to help states detect when previously eligible voters have died or moved out of state.

— Reporter Maxine Bernstein contributed to this report.