A federal judge on Friday struck down the Justice Department’s nationwide program to collect voter registration records and identify suspected non-U.S. citizens.
District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington ruled the department exceeded its legal authority and violated federal privacy laws by requesting sensitive voter data.
The ruling also found the DOJ improperly shared voter information with other agencies to determine people’s citizenship status, going beyond what federal law permits.
Sooknanan’s 78-page decision invalidated the DOJ’s entire voter list maintenance policy nationwide, delivering a sweeping blow to the Trump administration’s election integrity initiative.
The ruling came after multiple states separately won similar challenges against the Justice Department’s policy in their respective jurisdictions.
“DOJ cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of American people,” Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, wrote.
The decision stems from an April lawsuit filed by voting rights group Common Cause and four voters, who accused the administration of attempting to create a “sprawling new voter surveillance and purging apparatus” ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Plaintiffs argued the Justice Department was attempting to seize control of voter registration procedures traditionally overseen by states, putting eligible Americans at risk of wrongful removal from voter rolls.
At least 18 states had complied with the program, allowing voter records to be shared with the Department of Homeland Security and checked against the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as SAVE.
Participating states had also agreed to remove voters identified as ineligible within 45 days of receiving notification from the federal government.
Sooknanan found the department failed to adequately consider the risk of mistakenly removing eligible voters, even after acknowledging that federal citizenship records contained known inaccuracies.
The judge specifically cited a 2006 Social Security Administration audit that found approximately 3.3 million U.S. citizens had been misidentified as noncitizens in federal records.
“The Court vacates a policy that has removed United States citizens from the voter rolls in their home states and risks disenfranchising many more,” Sooknanan wrote in the ruling.
The decision blocks the Trump administration from continuing the program even in states that had voluntarily cooperated with the voter data collection effort.
