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The ACLU has intervened as Defendants in a suit brought by the Department of Justice against the District of Columbia’s Board of Elections, which has refused to turn over voter file information except as required by law. The motion to intervene was filed on behalf of Common Cause and two eligible, registered D.C. voters, one of whom is a naturalized citizen who is at particular risk of being targeted through aggressive voter purges that could mistakenly remove eligible voters from voter rolls. Concerns over such voter purges, unsubstantiated mass voter challenges, and the potential misuse of sensitive personal information have heightened the concerns of civil rights groups like Common Cause.

Common Cause and the individual voters seek to prevent the federal government from forcing D.C. to turn over the entirety of its voter registration database and to protect sensitive data within the voter rolls.

On August 6, 2026, the district court of D.C. denied the Department of Justice’s motion to compel the District of Columbia to turn over its unredacted voter file and dismissed the federal government’s complaint. The court, in agreement with fifteen other federal district courts, ruled that Title III of the Civil Rights Act does not authorize the Department of Justice to compel state election officials to produce unredacted copies of their states’ voter registration lists. As of August 6, the federal government has filed at least thirty lawsuits to compel the production of states’ voter files—twenty district courts and the Sixth Circuit have denied their motions to compel.