DOJ Launches Lawsuits Against States, D.C. Over Election Records

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a sweeping legal offensive against four jurisdictions—the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, and Wisconsin—accusing them of violating federal law by refusing to provide complete voter registration records.

According to the DOJ, the jurisdictions failed to comply with lawful requests for their full voter rolls, undermining transparency and public confidence in federal elections.

“The law is clear: states need to give us this information, so we can do our duty to protect American citizens from vote dilution,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Today’s filings show that regardless of which party is in charge of a particular state, the Department of Justice will firmly stand on the side of election integrity and transparency.”

The lawsuits follow explosive revelations surrounding Georgia’s largest county, Fulton County, which have reignited scrutiny of the state’s handling of the 2020 presidential election.

Election integrity researcher David Cross uncovered what he described as “systemic noncompliance” after paying nearly $16,000 to obtain Fulton County’s election records. Cross later informed the Georgia State Election Board that 134 tabulator tapes—covering approximately 315,000 early votes—were missing the legally required poll worker signatures.

“Because no tape was ever legally certified, Fulton County had no lawful authority to certify its advanced voting results to the Secretary of State. Yet it did,” Cross said. “And Secretary Raffensperger accepted and folded those uncertified numbers into Georgia’s official total.”

Cross’s findings revealed additional irregularities, including duplicate scanner serial numbers, mismatched memory cards, and precincts reporting voting activity as late as 2:09 a.m. These discoveries reinforced conclusions reached by the Georgia State Election Board in 2024, when it formally reprimanded Fulton County for double-counting at least 3,075 ballots during the 2020 recount and admitted it could not determine how many duplicated ballots were ultimately included in the final certified tally.

Investigators also acknowledged that chain-of-custody documentation for numerous ballot images was missing and that “some underlying records were lost entirely.”

Despite these admissions, state officials proceeded with certification. Fulton County avoided a formal referral to the Attorney General only by agreeing to monitoring measures ahead of the 2024 election. Nevertheless, Georgia’s 16 electoral votes were awarded to Joe Biden by a margin of just 11,779 votes—well within the scope of ballots now under question.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit specifically cites Fulton County’s “unexplained anomalies in vote tabulation” and alleges that county officials unlawfully refused to provide ballots, stubs, signature envelopes, and digital election files from the 2020 contest. The DOJ argues that this refusal violates federal transparency and record-retention statutes.

“Section 301 of the CRA requires state and local officials to retain and preserve records related to voter registration and other acts requisite to voting for any federal office for a period of twenty-two months after any federal election,” the DOJ complaint states. “On November 21, 2025, the Attorney General sent a letter to the Fulton Clerk requesting the documents on the same grounds… that letter restated the Attorney General’s request under the same authorities and purposes.”

Legal observers say the implications extend well beyond access to election records. The DOJ’s findings directly undermine the now-dismissed RICO prosecution brought by former Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis against President Donald J. Trump and 18 others. Willis had argued that President Trump’s objections to Georgia’s election results amounted to “criminal racketeering” because “there was no lawful basis” to contest the outcome.

That premise has since unraveled. The State Election Board confirmed statutory violations, and the Justice Department’s filings acknowledge unresolved irregularities affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of votes.

As one election attorney familiar with the case put it, “The notion that it was criminal to demand audits, signature verification, or machine checks looks absurd when the evidence shows those very systems broke down.”

Taken together, the record no longer supports the claim that concerns over the 2020 election were “baseless.” Instead, both state and federal authorities now concede that Fulton County’s election process failed to comply with the law.

For the first time, the federal government itself is formally acknowledging what many Americans have long suspected: the 2020 election in Georgia was riddled with violations that were never properly resolved.