A judge appointed by President Donald Trump seemed skeptical of the U.S. Justice Department’s core argument for access to Maine’s voter rolls, but he also had tough questions for a state attorney at a Thursday hearing.
The arguments in Portland showed U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker reckoning with the Republican president’s sweeping attempt to gain access to voter files across the country. The Trump administration has sued Maine and 28 other states led by a mix of Democrats and Republicans as part of a “voter integrity” push.
Judges in other states have ruled against similar lawsuits. Maine is among the Democratic-led states that have pushed back against the Trump administration’s actions on multiple fronts that are intertwined with the 2026 election. Thursday’s hearing hinged on the intricacies of the DOJ’s case for the records and Walker’s skepticism of both sides.
The sides got on the path to this lawsuit in July, when Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, publicly rejected the federal government’s request for the state’s voter file. At a news conference, she echoed a 2017 remark from a Republican in Mississippi by saying her message to the DOJ was, “Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.”
In September, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the state saying it was violating three areas of federal law by rejecting the request. Attorney General Aaron Frey’s office responded by saying the Justice Department was required to state a basis for the request but did not, arguing that the judge should throw the case out.
At Thursday’s hearing, Assistant Maine Attorney General Jonathan Bolton said the national requests suggest the Trump administration is trying to create a national voter database, something DOJ lawyer James Thomas Tucker denied. He restated the department’s case that Maine’s data is needed to determine whether the state is following federal law.
Walker was hung up on parts of that argument, telling Tucker at one point that it looked like the federal government was invoking a federal election administration law to see if it had a claim against Maine under that law, which has no provision requiring states to turn over records.
However, the judge was also skeptical about parts of the state’s case. He was uncomfortable with the state’s assertion about the idea of a federal voter database, saying he thought Bolton was “shadow boxing” on that point.
“If we were at a diner and talking about, ‘I bet that’s what they’re trying to do,’ that would be one thing,” he said. “But that’s not my charge.”
The lawsuit is the latest volley between the state and the Trump administration. Last February, Gov. Janet Mills’ verbal confrontation with Trump at the White House pushed the state into another lawsuit with the federal government over protections for transgender students.
It also put the Democrat on a path to run against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2026, although she is behind progressive oyster farmer Graham Platner in polls and fundraising. Bellows is one of the five Democrats running to replace Mills in the Blaine House in this year’s election.
