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CHICAGO (CN) — The Department of Justice sued Illinois on Thursday, claiming the state failed to produce its voter registration records, marking the latest development in President Donald Trump’s nationwide push to root out supposed voter fraud.
The Trump administration requested Illinois’ voter rolls in July, but the Illinois Board of Elections reportedly denied to turn over the data, citing privacy concerns. The government sought the registration information for all Illinois voters, which included their full names, home addresses and their driver’s license or Social Security numbers.
The Justice Department cited the Civil Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act in its 10-page lawsuit filed in the federal court in Springfield.
The department also sued Georgia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia on Thursday, which brings the number of lawsuits related to voter registration data up to 22.
“The law is clear: states need to give us this information, so we can do our duty to protect American citizens from vote dilution,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. “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.”
How the Justice Department plans to use the voter data remains unclear, though Trump has maintained that he’s focused on election integrity. He has repeatedly made baseless claims about large scores of immigrants without legal status voting in U.S. elections, and has indicated that he would use voter data to aid in his wide scale immigration crackdown.
A representative from the Illinois Board of Elections declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.
The Trump administration recently overhauled the SAVE or Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, which was previously used primarily to determine when immigrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status are eligible for government benefits.
Now, the Justice Department is using the database to check people’s citizenship status, and ensure that immigrants without legal status aren’t voting in U.S. elections. Dhillon lauded the system for rooting out over 200,000 deceased registered voters in a video shared to social media Dec. 5.
Instances of noncitizen voting by in federal elections are incredibly rare. In a Brennan Center for Justice study of the 2016 election, officials reported just .0001% of the 23.5 million votes cast in 42 jurisdictions surveyed were of suspected noncitizen voting. Similarly, a Heritage Foundation survey of voter fraud found 99 instances of noncitizens voting in federal elections from 2000 to 2025.
While the Trump administration has sued over 20 states for not producing their voter rolls, voter advocacy groups in some states have fought back. Common Cause Nebraska sued the Justice Department in September after it demanded the state turn over its voter registration data.
South Carolina similarly sought to block the department’s request, which a judge initially granted, until the state Supreme Court weighed in and ruled that the South Carolina Board of Elections must turn over its voter rolls to the federal government.
The Justice Department also sued Fulton County in Georgia after it denied to produce ballots from the 2020 election. The lawsuit came shortly after Fulton County dismissed election interference and racketeering charges against the president , who has claimed that he lost the 2020 election due to voter fraud in the strongly Democratic county.
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