The Radical Reading Room

A federal judge in Utah on Oct. 23, 2026 denied the Justice Department’s request to compel access to the state’s statewide voter registration list and dismissed the lawsuit challenging the state’s refusal to turn over the data. In a memorandum decision, U.S. District Judge David Barlow wrote that the court denied the Attorney General’s motion to compel and granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss. The case, United States v. Henderson, centered on whether the Justice Department could force disclosure of Utah’s statewide voter registration list under the Civil Rights Act of 1960. ([democracydocket.com](https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/68-2026-10-23-Memorandum-decision.pdf))

Barlow’s decision resolves a substantive question about the scope of Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. He held that Utah’s state-created statewide voter-registration list does not count as a record that “comes into” the lieutenant governor’s possession under that law. The court therefore denied the Justice Department’s motion to compel and dismissed its complaint with prejudice. This does not amount to a finding that the department’s officials personally engaged in misconduct or that any election fraud took place. The court did not need to decide Utah’s separate privacy-law arguments. ([democracydocket.com](https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/68-2026-10-23-Memorandum-decision.pdf))

The Justice Department had announced the Utah suit in February as part of a broader set of cases against states it said had failed to produce voter rolls. In that release, the department said it had filed suit against Utah and four other states over nonproduction of full voter registration lists and described the litigation as part of its election-integrity work. Utah officials argued that disclosing the full database would expose legally protected personal information. The judge did not decide those privacy-law arguments because the statutory interpretation resolved the case. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-five-additional-states-failure-produce-voter-rolls))

The practical result of Friday’s decision is straightforward: the Justice Department did not get the compelled access it sought, and Utah’s voter-registration records remained under state control. What the ruling does not do is resolve the larger political fight over federal demands for election records or establish that any underlying election-fraud claim is true. The dismissal with prejudice resolves the Justice Department’s Title III claim at the district-court level, subject to any appeal. It does not determine whether any voter committed fraud. ([democracydocket.com](https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/68-2026-10-23-Memorandum-decision.pdf))