Minnesota rejects DOJ's request for state's voter rolls

Nathaniel Minor, Star Tribune on Jul 25, 2025

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MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office has told the U.S. Department of Justice that it will not share the state’s voter registration list, as the federal government had requested last month.

The DOJ asked Minnesota election officials for voter rolls and other information to show proof it was complying with federal election law. They’ve made similar requests to other states including Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

But in a letter sent Friday, Justin Erickson, general counsel for the Secretary of State’s office, said the DOJ did not “identify any legal basis” for its request, nor did it explain how the data would be “used, stored and secured.”

The Secretary of State’s office, “will require clear legal justification for the data and sufficient information to show that the data will be protected and used properly before it can consider whether it is appropriate to share Minnesota’s voter registration list,” Erickson wrote.

The DOJ’s letter does not explicitly say why it requested the data. The department did not respond to multiple requests for comments from the Minnesota Star Tribune.

But the Associated Press has reported that the DOJ’s election division has shifted under President Donald Trump away from its traditional role of protecting access to voting to now addressing election integrity concerns held by conservative activists, often based on false claims of voter fraud.

An independent elections expert, who served as a lawyer in the DOJ’s elections division under Republicans and Democrats, told the Star Tribune last month that no federal law requires states to provide the federal government with voter registration lists.

Erickson’s eight-page letter provides answers to other questions posed by the DOJ, concluding that Minnesota’s voter registration systems meet or exceed federal standards and are “one of the most secure and accurate ... in the country.”

“Public trust in this system is exceedingly high, as evidenced by the fact that Minnesota routinely leads the nation in voter turnout,” Erickson wrote.

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