Rhode Island Voter Data Lawsuit: Amore Case Explained

The Rhode Island voter data lawsuit — United States v. Amore — is the federal case in which the U.S. Department of Justice sued Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore for refusing to hand over an unredacted copy of the state’s voter registration database, including driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers.

U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit on April 17, 2026, in a 14-page decision calling the request a “fishing expedition.” The DOJ appealed to the First Circuit in June 2026, and as of late August 2026 that appeal is still pending — so the case isn’t fully closed, even though Rhode Island’s win at the district court level still stands.

This guide walks through the full case, start to finish: how it began, the legal authority DOJ tried to use, who fought back, the ruling itself, the appeal that’s still active, how Rhode Island’s outcome compares to other states, and — since a lot of people land on articles like this one while actually just trying to check their own registration — a plain-language section on how to do that safely.

What Is the Rhode Island Voter Data Lawsuit About?

United States v. Amore is a federal lawsuit the DOJ filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island in December 2025, seeking to compel Secretary of State Gregg Amore to produce the state’s complete, unredacted voter registration list. Amore had already offered the DOJ the publicly available version of the voter file — the fight was specifically over whether the federal government could also force him to disclose non-public fields like Social Security and driver’s license numbers. A federal judge sided with Rhode Island in April 2026, and the DOJ’s appeal of that ruling is what’s still open today.

In practice, this is the distinction that matters most: nothing about this case changes what’s already public. A campaign, a researcher, or a curious neighbor could always get a copy of Rhode Island’s basic voter list — name, address, whether someone voted. What the DOJ wanted was the layer underneath that: the identifiers the state normally keeps locked down.

Timeline: How the Case Unfolded

The short version — filed in December, dismissed in April, appealed in June, and still working through the appeals court as of this writing:

Did Rhode Island Have to Turn Over Voter Data to the DOJ?

No. The district court denied the DOJ’s motion to compel and dismissed the lawsuit outright — Rhode Island never had to produce the unredacted file. That dismissal is on appeal, but it remains in effect, so no Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, or other sensitive Rhode Island voter data has gone to the federal government as a result of this case.

What Voter Data Did the DOJ Want?

The dispute was never about whether the DOJ could see any voter information — it was about how much, and how sensitive. Here’s the actual line the case was drawn on:

Already public, and available on request in most states:

• Name and registration status
• Voting history (whether and when someone voted — never who they voted for)
• Party affiliation, in states with partisan registration
• Precinct or district information

What the DOJ specifically sought, and what remains protected:

• Full driver’s license numbers
• The last four digits of registered voters’ Social Security numbers
• Dates of birth and residential addresses tied to individual, non-redacted records
• Other confidential identifiers the state doesn’t release through its normal public-records process

To put the scale in perspective: the request wasn’t targeted at a suspected problem voter or a specific precinct — it covered roughly 750,000 registered Rhode Islanders, essentially everyone on the state’s rolls, based on nothing more than a general compliance letter. That’s part of why the court treated it as overbroad rather than a routine records request.

What Legal Authority Did the DOJ Cite — and Why the Court Rejected It?

The DOJ’s request rested on a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, paired with claims that it needed the data to confirm Rhode Island’s compliance with two federal list-maintenance laws: the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Those laws do require states to keep voter rolls reasonably current — removing voters who’ve died, moved, or become ineligible — but compliance-checking on its own doesn’t automatically entitle the federal government to an unredacted copy of a state’s entire file.

Judge McElroy’s decision turned on exactly that gap. She noted the DOJ’s demand contained no specific factual allegations that Rhode Island was actually falling short on list maintenance, and — notably — that Rhode Island already runs its own processes for removing deceased voters and duplicate registrations from the rolls. That existing infrastructure undercut the DOJ’s stated need for the raw data. She wrote that the DOJ’s purpose “does not plausibly relate to individual voting rights,” and without real evidence of a violation, the request was the kind of “fishing expedition” the law doesn’t authorize.

Amore, for his part, wasn’t refusing on instinct alone — he cited the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002 in his written response to DOJ months before the lawsuit was even filed, both of which restrict how federal agencies can collect and share Americans’ personal data.

A useful analogy: it’s the difference between an auditor asking to see your receipts because your numbers don’t add up, versus an auditor asking for your entire filing cabinet “just in case.” The former is defensible list-maintenance oversight; the court found the DOJ’s request looked more like the latter.

Who Fought Back? The Intervenors

Because the outcome affected every registered voter in the state, four separate parties asked to formally join the case on Rhode Island’s side:

• Common Cause Rhode Island and three individual Rhode Island voters, represented by the ACLU and the ACLU of Rhode Island, moved to intervene on December 9, 2025.
• SEIU District 1199NE and the Rhode Island Alliance for Retired Americans, along with two additional voters, intervened separately, arguing that disclosure would put members at greater risk of identity theft and voter intimidation.

Why individual voters bothered to intervene, not just the state: Secretary Amore was defending his office’s authority; the voter-plaintiffs were defending something more personal — their own Social Security and driver’s license numbers sitting in a federal database they hadn’t consented to. That’s a meaningfully different stake, which is why the court let both tracks proceed alongside the state’s own defense rather than treating Amore’s motion as sufficient on its own.

The court granted intervention for both groups on January 6, 2026, and by the March hearing, Amore and both intervenor groups had each filed their own motions to dismiss.

The Ruling — What Judge McElroy Actually Decided

Judge McElroy sided fully with Rhode Island, but the hearing that preceded her ruling is worth understanding on its own. At the March 26, 2026 hearing, Eric Neff, the DOJ’s acting chief of its Voting Section, told the court the government wanted the data to make sure Rhode Island’s voter list was “clean,” flag voters who should be removed, and share the data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help confirm citizenship status. That admission — that the data was headed to a second federal agency for a purpose beyond simple list-maintenance verification — became part of why the request read as broader than what the cited statutes actually authorize.

McElroy, herself a first-term Trump appointee, wasn’t persuaded by Neff’s explanation. In her April 17, 2026 decision, she granted the motions to dismiss and denied the DOJ’s motion to compel, finding no adequate factual basis for the demand.

Secretary Amore called the ruling a vindication, saying it confirmed the federal government had no legal right to — or genuine need for — Rhode Islanders’ personally identifiable voter information, and described the DOJ’s approach as a constitutional overreach into responsibilities that belong to the states. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, who represented Amore, went further, suggesting the DOJ’s independence had been compromised by the administration it now serves. The ACLU framed the outcome as a privacy win, arguing that turning over the data would have created both a security risk and a potential tool for voter intimidat rhode island voter data lawsuition.

Is the Rhode Island Voter Data Lawsuit Over? The Appeal, Explained

No — not entirely. The district court’s dismissal still stands and Rhode Island hasn’t had to turn over any sensitive voter data, but the DOJ formally appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2026, and that appeal remains pending as of late August 2026.

After the April dismissal, the district court entered a partial final judgment on June 11, 2026, and the DOJ moved to expedite its appeal on June 17, 2026 — a request the First Circuit denied on July 6, 2026. That denial matters practically: it means the case will likely move on the appellate court’s normal briefing schedule rather than a fast-tracked one, so a final ruling could still be many months out. Until the First Circuit rules, Rhode Island’s district-court win is the operative outcome — but it isn’t the final word yet.

How Rhode Island Compares to Other States

Rhode Island was one of at least 30 states (plus the District of Columbia) the DOJ sued or pressured for unredacted voter data during 2025 and 2026, and the results split fairly cleanly along the same reasoning McElroy used:

McElroy’s ruling didn’t happen in a vacuum — she explicitly pointed to the earlier Oregon decision as persuasive precedent, where a federal court had already found the DOJ wasn’t entitled to an unredacted statewide voter file on similar reasoning. In other words, Rhode Island’s outcome was part of a developing consensus among several federal courts, not a one-off ruling. For a closer look at how a comparable demand played out elsewhere, see our coverage of the Arizona voter data lawsuit dismissal, which followed a related but distinct legal path.

Not the First Time: Rhode Island’s 2017 Voter Data Fight

This isn’t the first time Rhode Island has said no to a federal request for sensitive voter information — and the earlier round is a useful real-world data point on how these disputes tend to resolve. In 2017, President Trump’s short-lived Election Integrity Commission asked Rhode Island to supply personal voter data, including the last four digits of Social Security numbers going back to 2006. Then-Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea and then-Governor Gina Raimondo refused, declining to hand over anything beyond what’s normally available through a standard public-records request. That commission was disbanded without ever obtaining the data. United States v. Amore is, in effect, round two of the same underlying fight — this time escalated into a formal federal lawsuit rather than a request the state could simply decline outright.

Why This Case Matters Beyond Rhode Island

Under the U.S. Constitution, state officials — not the federal government — administer elections, and only Congress can pass laws governing how states run them. United States v. Amore sits squarely inside that division of authority, and a few things make it worth tracking even outside Rhode Island:

1. Precedent for other states. Because dozens of states received similar demands, however the First Circuit eventually rules could shape whether the DOJ can pursue comparable claims elsewhere.
2. Data security risk. Privacy advocates argue that centralizing driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers for tens of millions of voters in one federal database would be an attractive target for hackers and a potential tool for voter intimidation — not the routine oversight tool the DOJ described it as.
3. A broader political backdrop. The push for voter data has unfolded alongside other 2026 election-administration fights, including the proposed SAVE America Act, which would raise documentation requirements for proving citizenship when registering to vote — a separate, ongoing legislative debate that critics argue could risk disenfranchising eligible voters, particularly those who’ve legally changed their names.

This same pattern — a federal or corporate actor seeking large volumes of personal data, and the legal pushback that follows — shows up well beyond election law. If you’re researching how courts handle disputes over who controls your personal information more broadly, our coverage of the Mercedes-Benz data privacy lawsuit and the Homeland Security student visa lawsuit walks through how similar overreach arguments play out in other contexts.

How to Check Your Own Voter Registration Status (Any State)

A lot of people land on stories like this one after wondering something much simpler: “am I registered to vote?” That’s a completely separate, routine process from the sensitive-data dispute described above — it’s free, public, and unaffected by anything in this lawsuit.

As an example: someone who moved from Ohio to North Carolina last year and isn’t sure their registration carried over would go to North Carolina’s official state election site (not a national database — there isn’t one), enter their name, date of birth, and current address, and get an instant status check. The same basic process works whether you’re checking registration in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, Virginia, Indiana, New Jersey, Washington, or any other state — only the specific state website changes.

A few points that answer common variations of this question:

• Public voter rolls vs. your own record. Every state lets you check your own registration status for free. Far fewer states allow the public to search other people’s individual voter records by name — that kind of bulk or third-party lookup is typically limited to certified political committees, researchers, or in-state requesters, and rules vary significantly by state.
• Checking or changing your party affiliation. In states with partisan registration (Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and others), your registered party is usually visible on the same page where you check your registration status, and most states let you change your party affiliation using a similar online form or by resubmitting your registration.
• Did my friend vote? Public voter records can confirm whether someone participated in a given election, but they never show who a person voted for — that’s protected by the secret ballot in every U.S. state, no exceptions.
• How many registered voters are there? The U.S. Election Assistance Commission and individual secretary of state offices publish official registered-voter counts periodically, and the numbers shift with every election cycle — check your state’s official site for the current figure rather than relying on a fixed nationwide total.

For a reliable starting point, Ballotpedia maintains a list of official voter registration websites by state, and nonpartisan tools like Vote.org and Vote411 will route you to your specific state’s official lookup tool. If you’re checking your Rhode Island registration specifically, that’s handled directly through the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office — entirely separate from the sensitive bulk data at issue in United States v. Amore.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is the Rhode Island voter data lawsuit?

It’s the case United States v. Amore, filed by the DOJ in December 2025 against Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore, seeking the state’s complete, unredacted voter registration list. A federal court dismissed the DOJ’s claims in April 2026, and the DOJ has since appealed.

Q2. Did Rhode Island have to turn over voter Social Security numbers?

No. The court denied the DOJ’s motion to compel and dismissed the case, meaning Rhode Island hasn’t been required to disclose partial Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, or other non-public voter data.

Q3. Is the Rhode Island voter data lawsuit over?

Not entirely. The DOJ appealed the dismissal to the First Circuit in June 2026, and the First Circuit denied the DOJ’s request to expedite that appeal in July 2026 — so a final ruling was still pending as of late August 2026.

Q4. Who is Judge Mary McElroy?

Mary S. McElroy is the U.S. District Judge for the District of Rhode Island who presided over the case. She was appointed to the bench by President Trump during his first term, which added weight to a ruling against his own administration’s Justice Department.

Q5. What legal authority did the DOJ rely on?

A provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, combined with claimed list-maintenance obligations under the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. The court found the DOJ hadn’t provided the factual basis needed to justify the demand under any of those laws.

Q6. Which other states were sued over voter data?

The DOJ sued at least 30 states (plus D.C.) that declined to comply, including Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, Washington, and Arizona. Courts also dismissed comparable lawsuits in California, Oregon, and Michigan, while at least 12 states reportedly complied or pledged to.

Q7. How do I check if I’m registered to vote?

Visit your state’s official election website — search “[your state] voter registration status” or use a nonpartisan directory like Ballotpedia’s or Vote.org’s state-by-state lookup — and enter your name, date of birth, and address. Every state offers this free personal lookup, separate from the disputed bulk data at issue in this case.

Q8. Can I look up how someone voted, or which party they’re registered with?

No system, public or private, shows how a specific person voted — ballots are secret in every state. Some states do make party registration and participation history publicly searchable by name; others restrict that access. Check your specific state’s public-records policy.

Key Takeaways

• United States v. Amore is the formal name of the Rhode Island voter data lawsuit.
• The DOJ sought Rhode Island’s full, unredacted voter file — driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers included — citing the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the NVRA, and HAVA.
• Secretary Amore, the ACLU, Common Cause, SEIU District 1199NE, and the Rhode Island Alliance for Retired Americans all opposed the request, citing the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002.
• A federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit on April 17, 2026, in a 14-page decision that leaned on a similar Oregon ruling.
• The DOJ appealed to the First Circuit in June 2026; as of August 2026 that appeal remains pending, and the First Circuit has already denied DOJ’s request to fast-track it.
• Rhode Island fought a nearly identical federal demand back in 2017 and refused it then, too.