Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin has dismissed the Trump DOJ’s lawsuit demanding the Commonwealth’s full, unredacted statewide voter registration list.
The case, United States v. William Francis Galvin, was part of the Department of Justice’s aggressive nationwide crackdown to force states to turn over their voter rolls under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to root out dead voters, non-citizens illegally registered, duplicates, and other irregularities that threaten the integrity of our elections.
But in Massachusetts, Democrat Secretary of State William Francis Galvin refused to hand over the data. The DOJ sued. And now, an Obama judge has let him off the hook on a technicality.
According to the 13-page order issued Thursday, Judge Sorokin ruled that the DOJ’s demand letter failed to include a proper “statement of the basis” for requesting the records, as required by the 1960 law.
The judge wrote that the Attorney General’s August 14, 2025, letter stated the purpose (to check compliance with NVRA and HAVA list maintenance rules) but offered zero factual basis, no specific concerns, no anomalies, no complaints, just a blanket demand for Massachusetts’ entire computerized voter list.
The court slammed the demand as “facially deficient” and tossed the entire complaint and motion to compel. Motions to dismiss from Galvin and intervenors were declared moot.
This marks the fourth loss for the DOJ, with zero wins, out of 30 active cases.
Hellbound and Down 