Trump judge deals major blow to president's voter-suppression scheme

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House for Florida, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard

President Donald Trump is trying to win the 2026 midterm elections by stopping voters who he fears will oppose him — and yet his effort just suffered a major setback.

“A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking access to Arizona’s detailed voter registration records, dealing another blow to the Trump administration’s national effort to obtain expansive voter data,” Newsweek reported on Tuesday. “The ruling underscores growing judicial resistance to the administration’s election‑oversight strategy, which has repeatedly been blocked over privacy and statutory concerns.”

The judge who rejected Trump’s arguments, U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich, was appointed by the president himself. Despite this fact, Brnovich deemed Arizona’s statewide voter registration list to be “not a document subject to request by the Attorney General” under federal law and dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who was sued by Trump’s Justice Department for not turning over the information, celebrated the decision as a victory for voters. “This moment is a win for voter privacy,” Fontes said in a statement. “I will never comply with illegal requests that put Arizona voters in harm’s way.” In addition to his loss in Arizona, Trump has also lost similar Justice Department requests in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island. They also suffered setbacks in Georgia and other states.

“Opponents argue the requests violate state and federal privacy protections and unnecessarily expose sensitive personal information,” Newsweek wrote. “That concern was underscored in a related Rhode Island case, where a Justice Department attorney acknowledged in court that the department sought unredacted voter rolls so the data could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to help verify voters’ citizenship status.”

The magazine added, “Despite repeated court setbacks, some states have agreed to cooperate. At least 13 states have either provided or pledged to provide detailed voter registration data to the Justice Department: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.”

Constitutionally, Article I, section 4 of that document unambiguously states that elections “shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.”

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