Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the Trump administration, which is seeking the personal information of registered voters, including Social Security and driver’s license numbers.

The U.S. Department of Justice wants to obtain this information about registered voters, as well as details about election officials in more than two dozen states. The DOJ sued Maine and other states in September for refusing to provide the information.

Bellows and civil liberty advocates are worried the effort could lead to voter intimidation and suppression.

Bellows said in a written statement that Maine is not alone in opposing the request because of privacy concerns. She defended Maine’s elections as “free, safe and secure,” and accused the administration of “gross federal overreach.”

“The first Trump administration requested voting data from states, and not a single one complied, regardless of the political leanings of the state,” Bellows said. “Now the DOJ is attempting to go even further, instituting bully tactics, threats and lawsuits all in an aim to wrest control of election administration and oversight away from the states as the U.S. Constitution dictates.”

The state’s motion to dismiss was filed in U.S. District Court on Friday, citing the confidentiality of voters’ personally identifiable information, or PII.

“DOJ demanded that the State hand over this sensitive data without even describing—
despite repeated queries by the Secretary of State—a factual basis for its demand or how it
planned to store, use, or disseminate the data,” the motion states. “No responsible Secretary of State, charged under state and federal law with protecting the confidentiality of voters’ PII, would have acquiesced to such an audacious and inscrutable demand.”

The Brennan Center of Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, says the DOJ has requested voter information from at least 40 states and has sued 18 states. Nearly all states that have replied to the DOJ’s requests have not shared their full voter registration databases, the center said.

Bellows, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor and has made her opposition to Trump a central theme in a crowded field of well-known names, has been fighting efforts by the Trump administration to access personal information of voters for months.

The DOJ claimed over the summer that 11,000 Maine voters have more than one registration. Their effort is aimed at removing ineligible voters, Justice Department officials said.

“States simply cannot pick and choose which federal laws they will comply with, including our voting laws, which ensure that all American citizens have equal access to the ballot in federal elections,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a written statement in September, after the lawsuit was filed against Bellows.

For years, President Donald Trump has spread unfounded conspiracy theories about the security of American elections. Most notably, he’s claimed to have won the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

Bellows replied to the federal government’s original request for voter information by telling the administration to “Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.” The state formally rejected the request in August and again in September, prompting the federal lawsuit.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of Bellows. The ACLU noted that unredacted voter rolls include birth dates, drivers license numbers and portions of Social Security numbers.

“Maine voters have shared this sensitive information so they can exercise their right to vote, but they never agreed to let the federal government access that information and ignore the law,” said Zach Heiden, chief counsel at the ACLU of Maine. “The federal government’s attempted overreach can undermine voter trust and data privacy.”