The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington challenging the Trump administration’s use of federal databases to screen voter rolls for noncitizens. The coalition contends that the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department are engaging in interference with elections by comparing voter registrations against federal databases that may contain inaccurate information.
The lawsuit argues that cross-referencing voter rolls with undisclosed government databases could produce erroneous results that disproportionately affect naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote. According to the filing, such database comparisons have previously resulted in faulty data, and the coalition asserts that Congress has not authorized this type of activity and has instead prohibited invasions of voter privacy through government data matching.
The Trump administration has made combating noncitizen voting a priority ahead of the midterm elections, despite critics noting that actual voting by noncitizens remains rare. The administration has attempted to require the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to citizens and filed suits seeking detailed voter data from 30 states and the District of Columbia. A DHS spokesperson defended the department’s actions, stating it accessed publicly available state voter roll data and cross-referenced it with records of undocumented immigrants in federal systems.
By May, the administration had processed millions of voter registrations through government databases, with tens of thousands flagged as potential noncitizens or deceased individuals. The administration has claimed without providing evidence that approximately 250,000 noncitizens may be on voter rolls in four states, including California. California’s Secretary of State disputed the accuracy of these claims, stating her office has not shared voter registration lists with DHS or other federal agencies.
The lawsuit specifically seeks to block the administration’s review of California’s voter list and asks the court to declare the administration’s actions unconstitutional. In June, a federal judge had previously ruled that a revamped version of a federal verification tool could no longer be used, finding that it aggregated sensitive personal data in ways that could result in eligible voters being wrongly removed from rolls.
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