A federal judge ruled Monday against the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose a database meant to check welfare eligibility into a system for verifying voters’ citizenship, saying the move violates U.S. privacy laws.
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The ruling by Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee to the court in Washington, could undercut efforts by both the administration and sympathetic GOP-run states to try to cleanse noncitizens from their voter rolls.
At issue is the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, known in Washington as SAVE. Run by Homeland Security, it has been expanded over the last year to become a way for states and federal agencies to check voter rolls to try to spot noncitizens who have managed to register — and, in some cases, to vote.
But Judge Sooknanan said federal law should have prohibited DHS from using its data for that purpose. She also said some actual citizens have been wrongly flagged by the system.
“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 said.
SAVE has been the backbone of much of the Trump administration’s fraud-fighting efforts, both in welfare programs and voting.
It combines data from Social Security, the State Department and Homeland Security and from several dozen states that have shared their own information, allowing the government to cross-check names to try to spot duplicates and other ineligible voters.
DHS has run more than 60 million names against SAVE.
A document reviewed by The Washington Times this spring said SAVE had flagged more than 25,000 names on states’ voter lists as potential noncitizens, and spotted more than 330,000 names of dead people still on voter rolls.
But Judge Sooknanan pointed to evidence in her case that some valid voters were “wrongfully canceled” because their names were erroneously flagged by SAVE checks, and they didn’t respond to follow-up queries from election officials.
That included testimony from Travis County, in Texas, where one-fourth of voters flagged by SAVE checks had already proved their citizenship.
Judge Sooknanan said both Social Security law and the federal Privacy Act barred the administration from using SAVE for voter checks.
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The Washington Times has sought comment from DHS.
The League of Women Voters, which led the lawsuit against DHS, celebrated Judge Sooknanan’s ruling as “a victory for voters.”
“Efforts to create a federal voter database to facilitate voter purges threaten the fundamental right at the heart of our democracy,” said Marcia Johnson, chief of activation for the league.
Judge Sooknanan’s ruling orders DHS to stop using the database for the expanded voter checks.
Her decision is the latest blow to President Trump’s attempt to have the federal government play a deeper role in refereeing elections and voter fraud.
In another ruling Thursday, a federal judge in Maryland shot down the Justice Department’s attempt to force that state to turn over its voter lists so they can be checked against SAVE and other federal databases.
Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, said the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which DOJ had claimed allows it to get a look at state election officials’ documents, doesn’t actually apply to state voter registration lists, or SVRLs.
“Accordingly, this court joins every court to have addressed this issue in concluding that an SVRL is not a record or paper that a state must produce to the United States under the CRA,” the judge wrote.
DOJ has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia to demand their voter lists.
In nine of those cases judges have ruled against DOJ, while none have backed the administration. One lawsuit has reached a settlement.
The Justice Department has appealed a number of those rulings and the cases are pending in federal circuit courts.
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