CHICAGO — A federal judge tossed a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, saying the federal agency cannot compel the Illinois Board of Elections to release sensitive information about the state's roughly 8.3 million registered voters.

Seven months after Trump's DOJ filed suit, U.S. District Judge Colleen Lawless in the Central District of Illinois dismissed it with prejudice on Friday, meaning it cannot be refiled. Lawless' 14-page opinion cites a lack of authority from the federal government to demand the Illinois voter rolls.

"We'll let the order speak for itself," Matt Dietrich, a spokesperson for the Illinois Board of Elections, said in an email.

Originally filed in federal court last Dec. 18, the suit sought a judge's order instructing state election officials to release to then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi "the current electronic copy of Illinois computerized statewide voter registration list, with all fields, including each registrant's full name, date of birth, residential address, and either their state driver's license number, the last four digits of their Social Security number" or other unique identifier."

Election fairness and eliminating voter fraud have been a centerpiece of President Donald Trump's second term in office. The now-dismissed lawsuit in Illinois was part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to exert federal authority over state-run elections, including shifting the Civil Rights Division's focus from ensuring access to the polls to combating the specter of voter fraud.

"Yesterday's decision paired with the abhorrent track record that the federal government has in these overbroad attempts to gain voters personal information should absolutely be a sign that endangering voters rights will not be tolerated by our country's legal system, by our civil rights lawyers or by voters themselves," said Ami Gandhi, Strategic Initiatives & Midwest Voting Rights Program at the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

The Chicago Lawyers Committee served as co-counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, representing the interveners with "concerns regarding voter access."

Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the administration's initiative to fight election fraud does not justify the collection of confidential voter information.

"This continues a losing streak on the part of this administration, so far as litigation to try to compel sharing of electoral data," Tsao said.

Illinois is among 48 states sued, 19 of whom a judge ordered not to hand over a copy of a current statewide voter registration list to the federal government. Illinois joins the likes of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin, whose cases have been dismissed, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

"There will be a fight at every step of the way by people who insist on our democratic institutions standing, despite so much pressure and intimidation from the federal government," Gandhi said. "Voters of all parties and backgrounds are interested in not only keeping our election system intact, but strengthening it even further."

(Dan Petrella contributed to this report.)