RUTLAND CITY — Vermont argued in federal court Tuesday that the Trump administration’s lawsuit demanding the state’s voter roll data should be dismissed because the administration has not provided a sufficient reason for its request.
The Trump administration sued Vermont’s secretary of state, among many other states, last year after she refused the department’s demand to turn over voter data, including voters’ addresses, drivers license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
Following the hearing, Federal Judge Mary Kay Lanthier will issue a ruling to dismiss or move forward with the case.
Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas said she had grounds to deny the request because Vermont law bars state and local government officials from sharing personally identifiable voter data with federal agencies.
Copeland Hanzas said in an interview before the hearing that the Trump administration’s requests for states’ unredacted voter rolls undermine public trust in elections and point to broader concerns with privacy rights.
“We don’t want the federal government to have that level of information about individual Vermonters,” Copeland Hanzas said.
The state of Vermont’s lawyer, Samuel Stratton, representing Copeland Hanzas, argued the case should be dismissed because the Department of Justice did not provide a factual basis and purpose for the request and therefore does not comply with the Civil Rights Act.
“We are proud to defend Secretary Copeland Hanzas in this case, and we will continue working to protect our elections from federal interference,” the Attorney General Charity Clark wrote in a Tuesday statement.
The Department of Justice attorney Brittany Bennett argued that the federal government has broad authority under the Civil Rights Act to seek voter data to determine whether the state of Vermont’s elections comply with federal law.
The hearing comes after judges recently dismissed similar cases in California, Michigan, Oregon and Massachusetts. A federal judge in Massachusetts dismissed the case last week, asserting that the department failed to comply with Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 by not detailing how it will use voter information.
The Department of Justice has brought similar lawsuits against 30 states for withholding voter rolls, while 12 states have complied or said they would comply with the Justice Department’s request, according to a tracker run by the Brennan Center for Justice.
“We certainly hope and expect that the outcome of ours will be similar to what’s happened with the states that have gone before us,” Copeland Hanzas said. “But if the motion to dismiss isn’t approved, then we will continue to fight, and we will have our day in court.”
Disclosure: VtDigger reporter Greta Solsaa worked in summer 2022 as a paid canvasser for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, which filed several motions in the case.
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