A federal district judge on Friday invalidated a Justice Department policy aimed at collecting unredacted voter registration information from states and comparing it against federal immigration records. The decision represented a significant legal setback for the Trump administration, which had pursued the effort as part of efforts to investigate alleged non-citizen voting ahead of congressional elections.
US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled in her 78-page decision that the voter roll collection initiative, which was adopted to implement the president’s election integrity executive order, violated federal privacy protections and risked removing eligible voters from registration rolls. The judge stated that the policy constituted an improper assertion of federal authority over elections, noting that Congress has assigned voting roll maintenance responsibilities to states, not federal agencies. Sooknanan wrote that the challenged policy represented an attempt by the federal government to control voting eligibility, a power the Constitution reserves for states.
The ruling noted that the Justice Department had improperly disclosed and maintained records obtained from states, approximately 18 of which had provided sensitive voter information in May when the department made its request. The submitted data included full names, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers. Judge Sooknanan cited evidence that citizenship verification databases used by the department contained unreliable information, pointing to specific cases where eligible US citizens had been incorrectly flagged for removal from voter rolls based on erroneous non-citizen designations.
The lawsuit had been filed by Common Cause, a government watchdog organization. The judge’s decision did not prohibit states from independently maintaining accurate voter rolls or prevent federal support for such efforts through lawful means. This ruling followed an earlier June decision by the same judge limiting the administration’s ability to create a database of Americans’ information, which the Supreme Court had temporarily set aside. The Justice Department did not provide an immediate response to requests for comment on the ruling.
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