A federal judge finds a Trump data system to verify voters is unlawful
(NPR) A federal judge on Monday ruled that a Trump administration project to aggregate Americans' personal data to check voter eligibility is unlawful, and the resulting data tool cannot be used in its current form.
Several states have already run their entire voter lists through the system, known as SAVE, that was overhauled by the Trump administration last year. While the tool is supposed to flag potential noncitizens and deceased voters, a number of American citizens who are foreign-born have been mistakenly flagged as potential noncitizens by SAVE.
"All in all, 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 Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, wrote in her 75-page ruling. "This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens."
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/22/nx-s1-5866719/save-voter-data-trump-judge-unlawful
Whip-poor-will
(611 posts)Until the loser leaves we all lose by keeping him
Only thing he's good at is raping...children, countries ,Iranians , whoever
LetMyPeopleVote
(183,810 posts)trump's plan to develop his own database of eligible voters and use this to purge voters he does not like is NOT going to work. trump has sued a number of states to get this data and has lost every lawsuit. I am pissed that asshole Greg Abbott gave trump the data base for Texas voters
In blow to Trump, federal judge blocks DHS from using citizenship database to purge voters
— Jacob Knutson (@jaknutson.bsky.social) 2026-06-22T18:14:13.777Z
www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/in-blow-to-trump-federal-judge-blocks-dhs-from-using-citizenship-database-to-purge-voters/
In her decision Monday, District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan excoriated Trump and DHSs implementation of his March 25 executive order for ignoring federal privacy laws as they overhauled the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system into a faulty citizenship checker.
All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote, District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan wrote. This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.
The League of Women Voters led a coalition of voting and privacy advocates in challenging the changes to SAVE last year, suing DHS, the Social Security Administration (SSA) and other federal actors. While Sooknanan declined to issue a stay last November, she granted a summary judgment Monday, saying that the modification of the SAVE system violated the Social Security Acts prohibition on disclosing social security numbers, various provisions of the 1974 Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
LetMyPeopleVote
(183,810 posts)This opinion made me smile
The White Houseâs revamped voter-citizenship database has been ruled illegal. A federal judge noted that the centralized system illegally swept up the private data of millions of Americans, wrongly flagging many U.S. citizens as non-citizens.
— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) 2026-06-22T19:05:37Z
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-voter-fraud-2677076169
In a sharply worded opinion, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan vacated the 2025 overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system, along with two related privacy notices issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. She found the changes violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act
"[T]he federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote," Sooknanan wrote. "This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens."
The overhaul followed President Donald Trump's March 2025 executive order on elections that expanded SAVE to include records of natural-born citizens, tap Social Security data including SSNs, as well as let states run their entire voter rolls through the system in bulk.
The judge, an appointee of President Joe Biden, noted internal records showed the agencies knew the database was "not in compliance" with the Privacy Act and that accuracy shortfalls "could cause incomplete or false results." Naturalized citizens with outdated Social Security files were among those wrongly flagged as non-citizens, with some forced to prove citizenship within 30 days or lose their registrations. An investigation in one Texas county found a quarter of the system's "non-citizen matches" were people who had already proven citizenship, the court filing detailed.
Here is a link to the 75-page opinion
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.285454/gov.uscourts.dcd.285454.111.0_1.pdf