A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from using a revamped immigration database to verify voter eligibility, dealing a setback to President Donald Trump’s efforts to expand the federal government’s role in election oversight ahead of November’s midterm elections.
In a 75 page ruling issued on Monday, US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan sided with voting rights and privacy advocates who challenged recent changes to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements programme, known as SAVE.
The Department of Homeland Security had overhauled the system last year to make it easier for state and local officials to verify the citizenship and immigration status of registered voters. The changes enabled users to search large batches of records and access additional personal information, including Social Security numbers.
However, Sooknanan found that the revised system posed significant risks to voter participation and privacy.
“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” the judge wrote.
“This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
The ruling prevents the administration from using the revamped database for voter roll verification while legal challenges continue.
The decision marks the latest judicial setback for Trump’s election related initiatives. His administration has argued that stronger federal oversight is necessary to prevent voter fraud, despite numerous audits and academic studies finding such cases to be rare.
In a statement, Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival criticised the ruling.
“It’s amazing how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist. Judge Sparkle Soknanan’s (sic) latest ruling preventing DHS from addressing alien voting is just the latest example!”
Trump and his allies have long maintained that states are not doing enough to secure elections. The president continues to argue that fraud affected the outcome of the 2020 election, a claim repeatedly rejected by courts, election officials and independent reviews.
Several of the administration’s election related policies have already been blocked by federal courts. Judges have halted executive orders requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and limiting the counting of mail ballots. Additional legal challenges are pending against a 2026 executive order aimed at restricting mail in voting.
The administration has also faced resistance from states over access to voter registration data. Federal judges have rejected nine lawsuits brought by the administration against states and the District of Columbia over their refusal to provide complete voter rolls.
Voting rights advocates welcomed Monday’s ruling, arguing that the SAVE database contains outdated information that can incorrectly classify naturalised US citizens as non citizens.
According to advocacy groups including the League of Women Voters, several Republican led states used the revamped database to compare voter rolls against immigration records, resulting in some eligible voters being removed after being wrongly flagged as non citizens.
The groups argued that those errors risk disenfranchising lawful voters and undermining confidence in the electoral process.
Sooknanan also concluded that the SAVE overhaul violated federal privacy laws governing the disclosure of Social Security numbers and other personal information.
The ruling represents a significant obstacle to the administration’s efforts to use federal immigration records in election administration as the country prepares for closely contested midterm elections.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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