What Happened to Rhode Island Voter Data Lawsuit (United States v. Amore)?

The 'Rhode Island Voter Data Lawsuit,' formally known as United States v. Amore, centered on a contentious demand by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for comprehensive, non-public voter registration data from the State of Rhode Island. This legal battle was part of a larger, nationwide initiative by the Trump administration's DOJ to acquire sensitive voter information from numerous states, ostensibly to ensure compliance with federal election laws like the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and to investigate alleged non-citizen voting.

The conflict began when the DOJ, in summer 2025, requested Rhode Island's entire non-public voter file, which included highly personal details such as full names, residential addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore refused to comply with the full request, offering only publicly available voter data, citing state privacy statutes and the state's constitutional authority over elections. This refusal led the DOJ to file a lawsuit against Amore in December 2025, seeking a federal court order to compel the immediate production of the records.

Key turning points in the case included the intervention of several voting rights and civil liberties groups. In December 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Rhode Island, and Common Cause Rhode Island, along with SEIU District 1199NE, the Rhode Island Alliance for Retired Americans, and individual voters, filed motions to intervene and dismiss the lawsuit. These intervenors argued that the federal government's request constituted an overreach, threatened voter privacy, and could lead to the creation of an unauthorized national voter database vulnerable to hackers and potentially used for voter disenfranchisement through flawed data matching.

A crucial hearing took place on March 26, 2026, where U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy questioned the DOJ's attorney, Eric Neff, about the necessity and intended use of the data. Neff admitted that the sensitive voter information, if obtained, would be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status. Judge McElroy expressed skepticism about the DOJ's rationale, noting that a voter list provides only a 'snapshot in time' and that the DOJ had failed to provide factual allegations suggesting Rhode Island was violating list maintenance requirements.

The lawsuit reached its resolution on April 17, 2026, when Judge McElroy granted the motions to dismiss filed by both Secretary Amore and the intervenor groups. In her 14-page decision, Judge McElroy characterized the DOJ's demand as a 'fishing expedition' and concluded that it lacked a legally sufficient basis under the Civil Rights Act of 1960. This dismissal marked the fifth federal court loss for the Trump administration's DOJ in its nationwide effort to obtain sensitive voter data, with similar lawsuits rejected in California, Oregon, Michigan, and Massachusetts.