A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled the Department of Justice isn’t entitled to access the sensitive personal data of Michigan voters, a setback in President Donald Trump’s push to assert power over state-run elections.

The decision moves the country closer to a potential fight at the U.S. Supreme Court over state voter rolls ahead of the November midterm elections, with Michigan at the center. 

The Trump administration has sued 30 states for copies of their voter information. Federal officials want to run the data through a Department of Homeland Security computer program to identify possible noncitizen voters.

In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson isn’t required to turn over sensitive voter data, including dates of birth, driver’s license and Social Security numbers of voters. The 6th Circuit is the first appellate court to weigh in on the voter roll lawsuits after a series of district court rulings against the DOJ.

The Justice Department had demanded Michigan’s voter roll under the 1960 Civil Rights Act, which grants the U.S. attorney general broad access to documents and records that “come into the possession” of election officials. Congress passed the law to empower investigations into voting discrimination against Black citizens. 

Lower court affirmed

Wednesday’s opinion affirmed a February decision by U.S District Court Judge Hala Jarbou, a Trump appointee in the Western District of Michigan, who ruled that the Justice Department isn’t entitled to voters’ data. Michigan’s voter registration database is a record created by state officials, not a document that comes into their possession, she reasoned.

The appellate judges agreed, writing that making the state’s full voter roll subject to the Civil Rights Act would place Michigan officials on a “collision course” with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, two federal laws that require states to maintain and update voter registration lists.

The Civil Rights Act “tells election officials to retain and preserve certain records and papers that come into their possession, and the NVRA and HAVA tell election officials to remove ineligible voters from statewide voter registration lists,” Judge Andre B. Mathis, a President Joe Biden appointee, wrote in the majority opinion. 

“We should not adopt a reading that would place election officials in violation of one federal law for trying to comply with others,” Mathis added.

One member of the appellate panel, Judge John B. Nalbandian, a Trump appointee, wrote in a dissent that Michigan’s voter roll is a record that the Justice Department can demand under the Civil Rights Act. He argued that requiring Michigan to turn over the data wouldn’t conflict with the NVRA and HAVA.

DOJ sees ‘carveout’

During oral arguments in May, the Justice Department suggested that upholding the district court decision would weaken its ability to investigate racial discrimination in voting. DOJ attorney David Goldman told the panel that the district court judge had created a “carveout” in the Civil Rights Act not rooted in the law. 

But Michigan Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast, representing Benson, told the judges that the Justice Department’s demand is unprecedented and unsupported by federal law. 

“It doesn’t seem to meet the test of what the (Civil Rights Act) was talking about in the ‘60s,” Meingast said. “And the purpose was voters turning in their documents, their applications, their poll taxes.”

The Justice Department has been pursuing state voter rolls for more than a year. While some Republican-led states voluntarily provided the data, most states have resisted, leading to a wave of lawsuits. So far, no court has ruled in the DOJ’s favor.

Lawyers for the Justice Department have said the voter information would be shared with Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system — a computer program that originally checked the eligibility of individual immigrants for government benefits that the Trump administration overhauled into a tool to verify citizenship.

On Monday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the changes to SAVE had been made illegally and that the Trump administration had violated the privacy of millions of Americans. The judge also noted that problems had been found with SAVE, including falsely flagging citizens.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. DOJ lawyers can ask the full 6th Circuit or Supreme Court to hear the case.

“The law cannot be any clearer– states run elections, the federal government is not entitled to Michigan voters’ personal data, and the president cannot change election law with the stroke of a pen,” Benson said in a statement.