A federal judge just shut down one of the Trump administration’s most controversial election-data efforts, ruling that federal agencies unlawfully built a centralized system containing Americans’ Social Security numbers, citizenship information, and other sensitive personal data.
In a 75-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the administration from moving forward with the database, which was tied to the Department of Homeland Security’s revamped SAVE system. SAVE, formally known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, was originally used to help government agencies verify immigration or citizenship status for benefits and licenses. But under the Trump administration’s election-related directives, officials expanded its use for voter roll checks.
Sooknanan wrote that federal agencies “haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable” while trying to comply with Trump’s push to reshape federal election oversight.
The ruling focused heavily on privacy and voting rights concerns. The court found that the database effort violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. According to Reuters, the revamped SAVE system allowed bulk searches and gave users access to individuals’ Social Security numbers, raising alarms among voting rights and privacy groups.
The administration had defended the effort as part of a broader election-integrity agenda. A March 2026 White House executive order argued that federal agencies could assist in verifying citizenship for voter eligibility and protecting confidence in elections.
But voting rights groups warned the system could wrongly flag eligible voters, especially naturalized citizens whose citizenship status may not be updated in Social Security records. The League of Women Voters, which brought the lawsuit alongside other plaintiffs, said SSA data for naturalized citizens and some U.S.-born citizens is incomplete or unreliable.
“Since then, states have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information,” Sooknanan wrote.
“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. This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens,” she added.
The lawsuit was backed by groups including the League of Women Voters, EPIC, Democracy Forward, CREW, and Fair Elections Center. The Campaign Legal Center also warned that combining DHS and SSA data could lead to flawed voter purges because SAVE was never designed to confirm the citizenship status of every American voter.
“This protects millions from baseless investigations and unlawful voter roll purges, a critical win for voting rights,” Democracy Forward said in a statement.
The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
