"Legally futile": Arizona Secretary of State responds to DOJ's appeal request to access the private personal information of Arizona's voters

PHOENIX – Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes released the following statement regarding the Department of Justice's (DOJ) appeal:

"The DOJ's announcement that it plans to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that barred them from accessing Arizona’s voter registration database today is nothing more than ongoing political theater and further damage to Arizona taxpayers.

Despite their claims that I am withholding information, The Trump Administration has never asked for the publicly available voter information and instead demanded to have access to our full database of Arizona voters' private information, which is illegal—in both federal and state law—to hand over.

In her ruling on their original request, Judge Susan Brnovich stated that 'the Court will dismiss the Attorney General’s claim with prejudice because amendment would be legally futile.'

And that's exactly what this appeal is—legally futile. 

I want to make this clear to the Trump Administration: you can sue me as many times as you want, but I do not take my responsibilities as Arizona's Chief Elections Officer lightly and it will take more than political threats and unfounded lawsuits to deter me from working to protect Arizona voters and their personal information."