Judge halts Trump voter database over privacy, accuracy fears

Key Points:

• A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from using a modified database combining Americans' Social Security numbers and citizenship status, citing privacy violations and inaccurate data leading to wrongful voter purges.
• U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled that the administration knowingly violated privacy laws, including the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act, by sharing sensitive data with states that used it to remove purported noncitizens from voter rolls.
• The ruling stems from a lawsuit by the League of Women Voters and other groups, challenging changes made under a 2025 executive order aimed at verifying voter immigration status through the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE system.
• The judge criticized the administration for distributing a flawed system that caused some lawful voters to be incorrectly identified as noncitizens, resulting in canceled voter registrations.
• Advocacy groups praised the decision for protecting voters from erroneous removals and emphasizing the importance of safeguarding the right to vote against bureaucratic errors.