Justice Department sues Virginia for allegedly failing to turn over voter rolls

The department has argued that it has the authority to review state voter rolls through the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

Published: January 16, 2026 8:21pm

The Justice Department sued the state of Virginia Friday for allegedly failing to give the Trump administration access to the state's voter rolls as the country prepares for the 2026 midterm elections later this year.

The DOJ has pushed states to clean up their voter rolls ahead of the Congressional midterms by removing inactive, non-citizen or duplicate records from their systems, and has sued states that failed to turn over their respective rolls. 

The department has argued that it has the authority to review state voter rolls through the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. 

“This Department of Justice has now sued 24 states for failing to provide voter roll data and will continue filing lawsuits to protect American elections,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Accurate voter rolls are the foundation of election integrity, and any state that fails to meet this basic obligation of transparency can expect to see us in court.”

The lawsuit comes days after Texas said it has sent its voter rolls to the department, after a state review found thousands of possible illegal migrants were registered to vote.

Oregon has also directed its state election officials to clean up its voter rolls, which has approximately 800,000 inactive voters in its database. Approximately 160,000 of those inactive voters are expected to be purged immediately.

“Accurate voter rolls are essential to ensuring that American citizens’ votes count only once, and only with other eligible voters,” Assistant AG Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said. “The Justice Department is committed to safeguarding fair and free elections, and will hold states accountable when they refuse to respect our federal elections laws.”

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.

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