Judge blocks Trump voter-check system after 60 million records
Why it matters: The ruling bars use of the revamped SAVE database and found it violated privacy, Social Security and administrative law.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s expanded voter-verification system, ruling Monday that agencies unlawfully combined personal data from millions of Americans to screen voter eligibility. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said the revamped SAVE database, run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Department of Homeland Security, cannot be used in its current form. The system had been overhauled to allow bulk checks of voter rolls and linked for the first time to Social Security Administration data and records of U.S.-born citizens. NPR reported that more than 60 million voter records had been run through the tool, with 21,000 flagged as possible noncitizens. Plaintiffs including the League of Women Voters sued in March.