Trump voter database blocked by judge for privacy, accuracy fears
Trump voter database blocked by judge for privacy, accuracy fears
Publish Date: 2026-06-22 16:05:00
Source Domain: www.usatoday.com
Updated June 22, 2026, 4:05 p.m. ET
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from using a database of Americans’ Social Security numbers and citizenship status, saying the administration has knowingly given inaccurate data to states that are now “actively” and “haphazardly” purging purported non-citizens from voter rolls.
“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote in a 75-page ruling. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters and other advocacy groups, Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, said the Trump administration’s newly modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system combines citizenship data and other sensitive data with information from the Social Security Administration to create a clearinghouse that Congress has expressly prohibited.
Since his second term began, President Donald Trump has made several sweeping efforts to overhaul American elections, many of which have been stymied by federal judges. For example, the administration demanded full voter rolls from dozens of states and has lost nine lawsuits against states when it tried to enforce the demand.
Sooknanan stated that the federal agencies were working to comply with the March 25, 2025, executive order, which instructed the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to create a system for state and local officials to verify the immigration status of registered voters or of people registering to vote.
Other key provisions of the executive order are already blocked in separate court rulings.
The order led to the overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE system, which was modified to include the…
