Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read refused to provide detailed voter information.
Oregon secretary of state Tobias Read and his counterpart in Maine were sued this week by the U.S. Department of Justice to turn over voter registration data.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, demands Read turn over detailed information on every registered Oregon voter to help verify the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls. Read has maintained President Donald Trump lacks the authority and is working to further “anti-voter goals.”
Read wrote in a statement he’s being sued for “doing his job,” by protecting Oregonians’ right to privacy.
“The federal government is trying to intimidate my office into handing over Oregonians’ private voter data,” Read wrote. “Let’s be clear: this isn’t about secure elections. It’s about power and silencing anyone who opposes them.”
In announcing the lawsuit, the DOJ claimed Read “cannot simply pick and choose which federal laws they will comply with.”
“American citizens have a right to feel confident in the integrity of our electoral process, and the refusal of certain states to protect their citizens against vote dilution will result in legal consequences,” wrote DOJ assistant attorney general Harmeet K. Dhillon.
In March, Trump signed an executive order requiring people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and preventing states like Oregon from counting ballots received after Election Day. At the time, Read stated neither federal nor state law allowed the federal government the right to obtain that personal data.
Read’s office provided Oregon Business its correspondence with the DOJ since this summer.
The DOJ emailed Read’s office in July demanding he produce detailed information about each of the state’s voters, citing three federal laws as authority: the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
Read refused and directed the Department of Justice to an online public records request form they can use to purchase an electronic copy of the statewide voter list containing voter name, year of birth, political party and voting history. The fee for a copy of the statewide list is $500.
But that list doesn’t include certain data the Trump Administration wants, namely the full date of birth and driver license number or partial Social Security number. Federal lawyers are also seeking the names, addresses and voting history of any voters removed from Oregon’s voter rolls since 2022 because they were found to not be citizens, The Oregonian reported.
With a system of universal vote-by-mail on the books since 1996, Oregon has long been among the country’s leaders in voter participation, though turnout was down in the 2024 general election. The state still boasts a 94% rate of eligible residents who are registered to vote, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
A separate DOJ lawsuit names Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who also doubled down, telling Trump in response to “go jump in the Gulf of Maine.” The Pine Tree State, a largely rural state that went for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, is also a national leader in voter turnout. Like Oregon, Maine passed a law that gives citizens the option to register to vote when they interact with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, aka a “Motor Voter” statute.
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