Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson is asking a federal court to dismiss an effort by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to obtain Utah’s entire, unredacted voter database — and it has the backing of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.
In a response filed Friday, Utah argued the DOJ has no legal basis or valid reason for demanding the sensitive data, and that the state would be breaking its own privacy laws in handing it over.
Most states have refused the White House’s sweeping nationwide effort to obtain private voter information.
Utah is one of 29 states that the DOJ has subsequently sued. So far, none of the federal government’s cases has been successful, and judges have dismissed four of them.
Henderson, who oversees elections in Utah, has pushed back on the DOJ’s request since she received it last July.
“We’ve offered the public voter list. If they want protected data, there’s a process for government entities to request it for lawful purposes,” Henderson said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune at the time.
“We’ll address that if it comes,” she continued, “but so far we haven’t identified any federal or state statute that would justify handing over to the federal government the personal identifying information of 2.1 million Utah voters.”
Read Emily Anderson Stern's full story at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.