SALT LAKE CITY — The League of Women Voters of Utah is asking a federal judge to let it intervene in a lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice has filed against Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson, in which it seeks access to state voter roll data.
On Friday, the voter rights group, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, filed a motion in federal court to intervene and be named a defendant alongside the Lt. Governor.
"LWV-UT has a strong organizational interest in this case because their grassroots, volunteer-led work engaging voters is threatened by the United States’ request for sensitive, non-public voter data. The interests of LWV-UT’s members are also at stake. LWV-UT’s members include some of those groups who are under particular threat from the United States’ requested form of relief, such as voters who are naturalized citizens, voters who have a felony conviction, and voters whose personal information is especially sensitive and who thus have heightened privacy interests," the ACLU said in the filing.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Lt. Gov. Henderson in February, seeking access to non-public data in the state's voter rolls. In a statement at the time of the lawsuit, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said it was about "election integrity."
So far, Lt. Gov. Henderson has refused to turn over anything that is not already publicly available, saying she will not violate state or federal laws. Her attorneys recently asked a judge to throw out the DOJ's lawsuit, saying the agency is not entitled to those records and citing federalism, which invokes states' rights. In the filing, the Lt. Governor's attorneys noted that the DOJ has been unsuccessful in the other lawsuits it has filed against states and the District of Columbia seeking the same records.
Aaron Welcher, a spokesperson for the ACLU, told FOX 13 News that the Lt. Governor has administered safe and secure elections and the DOJ's request could impact political parties as well.
"This amount of data could be used to target people based on their political belief, based on what party they’re affiliated with, and is really a ramping-up of creating a national database on all of us who are eligible to vote," he said.
The League of Women Voters of Utah has been involved in high-profile litigation recently. The group is among the lead plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit against the Utah State Legislature over independent redistricting. The League successfully argued to overturn Utah's congressional district map and persuaded a judge to accept their proposed map, which they said was more aligned with the tenets of Prop. 4, a citizen ballot initiative for independent redistricting that voters approved in 2018. It led to all-new congressional districts in Utah and a more competitive Salt Lake County-centric district.
