Oliver says the Justice Department is 0 for 27 in its suits for states' voter rolls. The count is right. "Baseless" needs context.
The DOJ's launched a bunch of baseless lawsuits to try and seize states' voter rolls, on which they're currently 0 for 27 in court. [On screen: a Fox 13 Salt Lake City headline dated Oct. 23, 2026, "Judge throws out lawsuit against Lt. Gov. Henderson seeking Utah voters' personal information," with the caption "... '0-27' ..."]
Oliver's count is right. Courts have thrown out all 27 of the Justice Department's voter-roll suits they've decided on the merits, and the one appeals court to rule upheld a loss. A Trump-appointed judge ruled against it too. But most of the dismissals are on appeal, and some appellate judges wanted the question reheard.
What the post says or clearly implies, checked one by one. How verdicts work
DOJ sued 30 states and D.C. Courts dismissed 27 of the cases. One state settled, three are pending, and no court at any level has ruled for DOJ.
Oliver said DOJ is "currently 0 for 27 in court"1. The "0-27" on screen comes from Utah's Republican lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, who posted it after a judge dismissed DOJ's suit against her on Oct. 232. That judge, David Barlow, was nominated by Trump3.
A University of Wisconsin tracker, updated Nov. 2, counts 31 suits against 30 states plus D.C. Courts dismissed 27 on the merits, Oklahoma settled and agreed to hand over its data, and Delaware, Hawaii and Idaho are still open4. DOJ first sued Georgia in the wrong court, lost on that ground and refiled. The tracker counts Georgia once.
The Sixth Circuit upheld the Michigan dismissal in June, and the full court declined to rehear it, though some judges dissented. Most of the other dismissals are on appeal, including the Ninth Circuit's cases on California and Oregon4. Only three cases remain unresolved in district court3.
Every judge to reach the merits has found the laws DOJ cited don't require states to hand over full voter lists. But most of those rulings are on appeal, and some appellate judges wanted the question reheard.
Most cases turned on a 1960 civil rights law about election records. In Utah, Barlow ruled the list falls "outside of Title III's ambit" because the state builds it rather than receives it, and he didn't reach privacy2. On Oct. 9 a federal judge in D.C., Sparkle Sooknanan, went further. She struck down the whole program, including data-sharing with DHS, as beyond DOJ's authority and a violation of the Privacy Act. She's a Biden appointee who once helped lead DOJ's Civil Rights Division5. DOJ has appealed6,4.
DOJ says it's enforcing federal list-maintenance laws. Its stated goal is "clean voter rolls"7. Its agreements with states say it will "test, analyze, and assess" the rolls and send states names to remove8.
DOJ still got data from many states. It asked 49 states and D.C. for their rolls, and at least 18 turned over files, according to the record in the D.C. case. That Oct. 9 ruling barred DOJ from using those files in its program, a ruling now on appeal6.
Facts can't settle this part, so we don't rule on it.
Should the federal government get every state's full voter list to check who's eligible, or should that data stay with the states?
Federal law requires states to make "a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters" who have died or moved, and DOJ enforces it9. The full files DOJ wants include driver's license and partial Social Security numbers10. Of DOJ's 31 suits, 23 were against jurisdictions with Democratic chief election officials and 8 against Republicans10.
DOJ can't enforce accurate voter rolls if it isn't allowed to check them.
Congress gave DOJ the job of enforcing states' duty to clean their rolls, and a duty nobody can check isn't much of a duty. State self-policing has missed real errors. Reuters estimated states may have added more than 30,000 self-declared noncitizens to rolls since 2000, mostly through motor-voter mistakes in red and blue states alike11. When Ohio ran its own check, it referred 1,084 noncitizen registrants to DOJ12.
The legal case isn't settled. The 1960 law reaches "all records and papers which come into his possession relating to any application, registration"13. Courts have read "come into his possession" narrowly, but some Sixth Circuit judges dissented when the full court declined to rehear Michigan4. At least 18 states handed over files6. As Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon put it, "If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will"14.
States run elections, and a national file of every voter's private data is a risk the law doesn't allow.
States run elections. Judges appointed by presidents of both parties have said the laws DOJ cites don't reach the full voter file3,6,4. Utah's Republican lieutenant governor offered the public list, but said DOJ's suit sought "the private data of every Utah voter"15. In 2017, Republican secretaries of state in Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee said they would not hand over voter data to Trump's voter-fraud commission16.
A single federal file is a hacking target and a removal tool no state can audit. DOJ ran states' files through a DHS citizenship database6 that some states had used to wrongly remove U.S. citizens, the same judge found in June17. DOJ's agreements ask states to remove flagged voters within 45 days, far faster than the federal process for voters who have moved, the Brennan Center argues8. DOJ can still sue a state with evidence its list is broken.
Every source was opened and read. Advocacy groups are labeled as such.
Think we got something wrong? Email editor@viewfromthegallery.com with a source. Corrections are made openly and logged on the page.
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