HARRISBURG, P.A. (KYW Newsradio) — The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Pennsylvania and five other states after it says they didn’t turn over requested voter registration lists.
U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi is asking the court to force Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and New Hampshire to surrender their voter rolls.
The lawsuit follows two similar ones filed against Oregon and Maine.
In response to the lawsuit, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt’s office issued a statement calling the Justice Department’s request of voter’s personal information, including driver’s license and social security numbers, “unprecedented and unlawful.”
“We will vigorously fight the federal government’s overreach in court,” the statement continued. “The Department of State will aggressively defend the privacy of Pennsylvania voters against this baseless lawsuit.”
In a series of letters between July and August, Bondi asked Schmidt for the voter rolls and to reveal how PA purges non-citizens from those rolls.
Federal access to state voting records is a component of Project 2025, a right wing agenda to reshape the U.S. government published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.