A federal judge ruled October 9 that the Justice Department’s policy of collecting detailed state voter rolls, matching them against federal citizenship records and urging states to remove suspected noncitizens was unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan set aside the policy, including as applied to rolls that states had already handed over voluntarily. She found problems with the department’s legal authority, its handling of private information and its failure to account for errors that could affect eligible voters.
The ruling addresses a particular federal program, not the general authority of states to maintain accurate voter rolls or verify eligibility. The department can appeal, and a spokesperson said it was reviewing the decision.
Background: How the Policy Worked
Federal law requires voters in federal elections to be U.S. citizens, and states operate the registration systems used to determine who can vote. State election officials also update lists when voters move, die or become ineligible, subject to federal and state protections.
The Justice Department sought unredacted statewide registration records and aimed to compare them with the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, commonly called SAVE. Federal officials then alerted states to entries they believed indicated ineligible registrants.
Voting-rights organization Common Cause and four individual voters challenged that policy, arguing that the department lacked authority for such a nationwide data collection effort and that inaccurate citizenship records could wrongly identify eligible citizens.
In a 78-page memorandum opinion, the judge recounted that the department requested unredacted records from 49 states and the District of Columbia, and that at least 18 states fully complied. She examined both the government’s asserted statutory authority and its methods of handling records.
What the Judge Decided
The court concluded that the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act did not authorize the department to gather and share full state voter registration files in the manner adopted.
The judge also concluded that the agency had not considered the risk posed by citizenship data errors, and that its practices violated the Privacy Act and federal information-collection procedures. The policy was set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act. CBS News reported that the ruling covers files the department has already received as well as those it is still litigating over.
The opinion stresses that naturalized citizens can be wrongly flagged as noncitizens when older government records are not updated. It says the policy has already led to citizens being removed from voter rolls, pointing to two Texas voters whose registrations were canceled after SAVE failed to confirm their citizenship.
A related dispute over an expanded version of SAVE follows a separate path. Judge Sooknanan set aside that expansion in June, and the Supreme Court stayed her order in September. The two court actions should not be conflated.
What Different Sides Are Saying
Justice Department and administration: The department has argued that it needs voter-list information to check state compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, which require states to keep accurate rolls. President Trump argues that more federal scrutiny is needed to stop noncitizens from voting, according to CBS News.
Fact-check: Noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections, and states have obligations to keep accurate lists. CBS also noted that most election experts consider noncitizen voting extremely rare. Neither fact gives the department unlimited authority to collect or redistribute private registration information, and the court found that the statutes it cited did not authorize this particular policy.
Common Cause and voting-rights advocates: Challengers say the policy put sensitive personal information at risk and could cause lawful voters to be removed because of incorrect records. They also argue that federal officials were seeking powers normally exercised by the states.
Fact-check: Citizenship databases can contain outdated or incomplete information, particularly for newly naturalized citizens, and the court credited examples of wrongful removals from the case record. This article did not independently verify those examples. The ruling does not establish that every data match was wrong or that verification itself is unlawful. Its findings concern the legality and safeguards of this specific program.
States and election administrators: Some states cooperated with the federal effort and others refused. Reuters reported October 9 that the department sued 30 Democratic-led and Republican states that would not hand over their rolls. By the court’s own count, at least 25 federal district courts have dismissed those suits.
Fact-check: Federal election law sets minimum requirements and protections, while states administer registration. Neither federal oversight nor state discretion is unlimited, and the dismissed lawsuits are a separate line of cases from this challenge to the department’s overall policy.
Why Timing Matters
The ruling came 25 days before the November 3 midterm elections, when registration and ballot administration deadlines are especially sensitive. Removing an eligible voter shortly before an election can be difficult to remedy even when the underlying database error is later identified.
CBS also noted that federal law bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election, which could limit the practical effect of recent rulings on the midterms. Election administrators also have a legitimate interest in identifying ineligible registrations. The dispute is not over whether voter rolls should be accurate, but over which agencies may obtain personal information, what procedures they must follow and how errors are resolved.
What Happens Next?
The government may appeal the ruling and seek emergency relief. Unless another court changes its effect, the challenged policy cannot continue in the form the district court invalidated.
States may still maintain their rolls using lawful procedures and eligible sources of information. Readers should distinguish this district-court ruling on the federal policy from any stay or decision in the separate SAVE lawsuit.
Note on Scope
The opinion does not quantify the number of noncitizens on voter rolls nationwide, and it does not prove that all registrations questioned through the program were valid. No nationwide rate of noncitizen registration is inferred here. The legal conclusion is limited to the administrative record and the specific voter-list maintenance policy the court examined. This article could not locate a detailed Justice Department response beyond the statement that it was reviewing the decision.
Related Links
- Federal Court: October 9 Opinion
- Reuters: Judge Rules DOJ Voter-Roll Use Unlawful
- CBS: Judge Strikes Down Voter-Roll Policy
- Case Documents: Common Cause v. DOJ
- PJ Media: Opinion on the Ruling and Appeal
Discussion Questions
- Have you ever registered to vote or updated your registration? How did it go?
- What information should federal agencies be allowed to get from state voter lists?
- How should a state check a questionable citizenship database match before removing a voter?
- Who should be responsible for voter rolls: states or the federal government?
- How can officials balance voter privacy with accurate lists?
- Do you find the judge’s reasoning or the Justice Department’s argument more persuasive?
- Should rules about removing voters change shortly before an election?
- How is a ruling against this policy different from a ruling against citizenship checks in general?
- Why do voter rolls cause so much political conflict in the US and in other democracies?
- Imagine you are an election official. What safeguards would you require before removing anyone from the rolls?
