The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office has told the U.S. Department of Justice that it will not share the state’s voter registration list, as the federal government had requested last month.

The DOJ asked Minnesota election officials for voter rolls and other information to show proof it was complying with federal election law. They’ve made similar requests to other states including Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

But in a letter sent Friday, Justin Erickson, general counsel for the Secretary of State’s office, said the DOJ did not “identify any legal basis” for its request, nor did it explain how the data would be “used, stored and secured.”

The Secretary of State’s office, “will require clear legal justification for the data and sufficient information to show that the data will be protected and used properly before it can consider whether it is appropriate to share Minnesota’s voter registration list,” Erickson wrote.
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