U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan struck down the Justice Department’s nationwide voter-list maintenance policy Friday, blocking the Trump administration’s effort to collect voter registration records and identify suspected non-U.S. citizens. Her ruling also reaches states that chose to cooperate.
The 78-page decision voided the policy nationwide, though multiple states had already prevailed in challenges to the rule in their jurisdictions. Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, ruled that the department exceeded its legal authority and violated federal privacy laws when it requested sensitive voter information and shared it with other agencies to determine citizenship status.
What the Court Said
“DOJ cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of American people,” Sooknanan wrote.
She also criticized the department’s process. It hadn’t adequately considered the risk of wrongly removing eligible voters, she found, despite knowing that federal citizenship records contained errors. She cited a 2006 Social Security Administration audit, which found roughly 3.3 million U.S. citizens had been misidentified as noncitizens. The audit is 20 years old, but Sooknanan said the department should have heeded its findings.
“The Court vacates a policy that has removed United States citizens from the voter rolls in their home states and risks disenfranchising many more,” she wrote.
How the Program Worked
The effort began last year, after President Trump issued an executive order directing federal officials to work with states to identify potential election-law violations. The Justice Department then sought unredacted voter registration lists nationwide, including names, addresses and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 18 states complied. The Department of Homeland Security received their records and checked citizenship status against the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Participating states also agreed to remove voters flagged as ineligible within 45 days of notification.
That’s a notable detail. Many states chose to take part. They weren’t dragged in. The ruling now overrides decisions by state governments that opted to work with Washington on keeping their rolls clean.
The Challengers’ Case
The decision followed an April lawsuit brought by voting rights group Common Cause and four voters. They accused the administration of building a “sprawling new voter surveillance and purging apparatus” ahead of November’s midterm elections. The plaintiffs argued that the department sought control over voter registration procedures traditionally overseen by states, putting eligible Americans at risk of wrongful removal.
The irony is hard to miss. The challengers relied on federalism arguments, saying states, not Washington, run elections. Yet the ruling wiped away the choices of 18 or more states that had agreed to the arrangement.
What Comes Next
The source material doesn’t say whether the administration will appeal. With the policy vacated, the department no longer has the SAVE-based verification pipeline it built, just weeks before voters head to the polls. Whether the government can pursue a narrower approach that meets the privacy laws Sooknanan cited remains an open question.
Why This Matters:
This case puts two things Americans care about in direct conflict: confidence that only eligible citizens vote, and protection from government overreach and bad data. The judge’s findings on privacy law and flawed federal records are serious, and any list-maintenance effort has to address them. But the ruling also leaves election officials with fewer tools to verify citizenship less than a month before the midterms. States that willingly cooperated now see that choice overturned by a single federal judge. Expect the fight over who controls voter rolls, and how accurately they’re kept, to continue well past November.