In blow to Trump, federal judge blocks DHS from using citizenship database to purge voters

Key Points:

• A federal judge in Washington D.C. blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using its citizenship database to remove voters from registration rolls, ruling that the agency violated federal privacy laws in implementing President Trump's executive order to overhaul the SAVE system.
• Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan found that the modifications to the SAVE system unlawfully disclosed Social Security numbers and violated the Privacy Act and Administrative Procedure Act, ordering DHS to revert the system to its previous state.
• The ruling highlighted that the expanded SAVE program, used mostly by Republican-led states, flagged thousands of eligible voters as noncitizens due to faulty data, raising concerns about voter suppression and privacy violations.
• The Department of Justice has sued 30 states and D.C. to access voter registration records for testing in SAVE but has lost all cases so far; this ruling further limits the administration's ability to use SAVE for voter verification.
• While the judge did not rule on constitutional claims regarding election administration, she emphasized that the case concerns fundamental rights to privacy and voting, condemning the creation of a centralized federal database that Congress had intended to prevent.