A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the Justice Department’s demand for the state’s complete, unredacted list of every registered voter, handing the DOJ its 16th consecutive courtroom defeat in a nationwide push to collect entire state voter files. U.S. District Judge Kari Dooley, a Trump appointee, issued the ruling on July 17, 2026, siding with Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas.
A Nationwide Campaign for State Voter Files
Since early 2025, the Justice Department has sent demand letters and filed lawsuits across the country seeking states’ full voter registration databases. The stated rationale has been enforcement of federal election law, but the sheer scope of the requests — every voter’s record, unredacted — has alarmed election officials in both parties. Connecticut was one of more than two dozen jurisdictions targeted.
The Connecticut case began in January 2026, when the DOJ sued Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas after she declined to turn over the state’s entire list. According to a running tally maintained by Democracy Docket and corroborated by Bloomberg Law, the department has now lost 16 straight times in federal district courts — an 0-16 record — with only a single, partial win on appeal at the Sixth Circuit, where a divided panel ruled 2-1.
What Judge Dooley Ruled
At the heart of the DOJ’s argument was Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, a provision governing the retention and production of federal election records. Judge Dooley concluded that Connecticut’s statewide voter registration list simply does not fall under that law.
The statewide list, she wrote, is “a record created by the state” — assembled by Connecticut officials from data supplied by individual towns — not a record that “comes into the state’s possession” from an outside source. In her reading, Title III covers records election officials receive and must preserve, not the constantly updated database the state builds and maintains itself. That distinction was enough to defeat the department’s demand.
Not One Rogue Judge
It would be easy to frame this as a single Trump appointee breaking ranks, but the broader record tells a different story. Roughly 10 of the 16 rulings against the DOJ have come from judges appointed by Republican presidents — seven named by Trump himself and three by George W. Bush. Judges across the ideological spectrum have reached the same conclusion about what the statute does and does not require.
That bipartisan pattern matters. It suggests the losses are not about politics but about the plain text of the law. In one related case, a federal judge in West Virginia openly questioned the government’s motives, wondering aloud what the “real purpose” was for filing so many nearly identical suits nationwide.
What Comes Next
The Justice Department is not necessarily finished. It can appeal Dooley’s ruling to the Second Circuit, and its lone appellate win shows the legal question is not entirely settled. But 16 consecutive district-court losses form a formidable wall. Courts have rejected the government’s theory on two consistent grounds: that voter rolls do not meet the legal definition of records that must be disclosed, and that the department failed to state a proper basis and purpose in its demand letters.
What This Means for Americans
For ordinary voters, the stakes are personal. A statewide voter file contains names, addresses, dates of birth and party affiliations — a detailed map of the electorate. Handing that data, unredacted, to the federal government raises real questions about privacy and how the information might be used. For now, judge after judge has drawn the same line: the federal government does not get a state’s entire voter list just by asking, and it does not get it by suing either.
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