A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking access to Massachusetts state voter registration rolls, dealing a setback to the Trump administration's efforts to obtain voter data from states across the country.

U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin issued the ruling on Thursday, rejecting the DOJ's request for the voter information. In his decision, Sorokin wrote that the department's legal argument "fails for the simple reason" that it lacked sufficient legal justification for compelling the state to turn over the records.

The lawsuit was part of a broader Trump administration initiative to collect voter registration lists from nearly every state in the nation. The effort has faced resistance from numerous states that have cited privacy concerns and questioned the federal government's authority to demand such records.

Massachusetts had refused to comply with the DOJ's request for voter data, prompting the federal lawsuit. State officials argued that releasing the information would violate voter privacy protections and that the federal government had not provided adequate justification for needing the records.

The ruling represents another legal obstacle for federal efforts to obtain comprehensive voter registration data from state governments. Similar requests to other states have met with varying degrees of cooperation and legal challenges.