Judge Blocks Trump Administration from Using Social Security Data to Purge Voter Rolls

An American federal judge ruled on Monday that President Donald Trump’s administration breached federal privacy laws by restructuring a government data program to broaden its use in removing voters from registration lists, according to CNN.

The ruling by Judge Sparkle Sooknanan was described by CNN as a significant setback to Trump’s efforts to monitor non-citizens on state voter rolls. Voting rights advocates and election officials argue that these efforts risk mistakenly categorizing eligible American citizens as ineligible to vote, potentially disenfranchising lawful voters. The court order also halts the use of the expanded data system.

Judge Sooknanan, appointed by former President Joe Biden, stated: “The federal government knowingly violated the privacy rights of American citizens in a way that threatens their sacred right to vote. This court cannot stand idly by while this occurs.”

On Saturday, President Trump announced plans to issue an executive order requiring American voters to present identification cards when voting in elections.

The case centered on the federal data program known as SAVE, which the U.S. government has long used to verify individuals’ citizenship status when granting public assistance and benefits. Election officials have also been permitted to use SAVE to check for non-citizens on voter rolls.

During the early months of Trump’s second term, his administration expanded the program by incorporating Social Security data and information from other government sources.

In her ruling, Judge Sooknanan wrote that the administration was aware that restructuring the SAVE program violated privacy protections enacted by Congress but proceeded rapidly to implement the changes “to comply with an executive order aimed at reshaping federal elections, resulting in the creation of a mass voter identity verification system.”

Since these modifications, the U.S. administration has encouraged states to use the system. CNN reported that the administration is now seeking to penalize states that refuse to adopt it.

President Trump signed an executive order to reform elections in the United States, mandating voters to provide citizenship documentation before registering to vote.

The U.S. Department of Justice launched an unprecedented campaign to obtain complete and unedited voter records from all states to cross-check lists against the federal citizenship data program.

Trump also recently issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to use the SAVE program and other federal data sources to compile lists of citizens who have reached voting age in each state.

It remains unclear how the recent court ruling will practically affect these initiatives, although some of these measures have already faced legal challenges in other lawsuits.

James Percival, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, criticized the court decision in a post on the platform X, stating: “It is astonishing how desperately the left fights to prevent us from addressing problems they insist do not exist. The latest ruling by Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, which stops DHS from addressing the issue of non-citizen voting, is just another example of this.”

The lawsuit before Judge Sooknanan was filed by a coalition of voting rights organizations alongside a privacy advocacy group.

Plaintiffs argued that their privacy rights were violated and that their members faced the risk of being wrongly classified as non-citizens due to the SAVE system potentially containing outdated or inaccurate data.

Sky Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented the plaintiffs, said: “At a time when the Trump administration continues its assault on voting rights, this ruling is an important victory for the American people and our democracy.”

She added, “The data at the heart of this lawsuit was collected unlawfully, violating privacy laws designed to protect sensitive personal information of citizens.”