By Frost McGahey
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson look on during a Sept. 11, 2024 House Administration Committee hearing on elections, held at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Source NM, Source NM
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson look on during a Sept. 11, 2024 House Administration Committee hearing on elections, held at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. (Source NM)
On December 2, 2025 the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Maggie Toulouse Oliver, NM Secretary of State. The reason was for her refusing to turn over New Mexico's full, unredacted voter registration database. It is a statewide list of registered voters containing full names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver's license numbers, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.*
The DOJ claims it has authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to inspect and copy these records.
The lawsuit asks the federal court to compel Toulouse Oliver to provide these complete voter registration records to the DOJ.
New Mexico's lawsuit is part of a broader wave of DOJ actions filed against multiple states that declined to provide unredacted voter data.
Secretary Toulouse Oliver argued that providing such sensitive data raises serious privacy and legal concerns and exceeds federal authority under state election law. (However, much of that information is already available to the government on IRS tax returns.)
The ACLU, Common Cause, and two New Mexico voters filed motions to intervene on Toulouse Oliver's side. This was after federal officials acknowledged in November that the DOJ shared voter information with the Department of Homeland security to search for illegal aliens.
Toulouse Oliver joined 10 other secretaries of state asking if the DOJ misled them about how voter information would be used.
She said, "What is the data being used for outside of verifying citizenship? That's a big concern because we're not in the business of creating citizenship lists or providing information to Immigration Customs Enforcement."
Grant County has an unusually high number of registered voters. Out of an adult population of 22,721, there are 21,136 registered voters for a rate of 93% of the population. The national average is 73.6%**
In a news release the US Attorney General Pamela Bondi said, "Accurate voter rolls are a cornerstone of fair and free elections too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance. The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards."
*US Justice Department sues New Mexico over voter rolls • Source New Mexico (sourcenm.com)
**RegisteredVotersByPrecinct (amazonaws.com) Secretary of State Website and U.S. Census
