A federal judge has ruled against the Justice Department’s use of voter data to cross-reference immigration databases.
Published October 9, 2026
A U.S. judge has ruled that the Justice Department illegally sought state voter rolls against federal immigration databases to identify voters it deemed ineligible.
Friday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Sparkle Skunanan marks another setback for President Donald Trump’s efforts to expand federal oversight of elections ahead of the midterm elections, as Republicans seek to maintain control of Congress.
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In a 78-page ruling for the watchdog group Common Cause, Sukhnanan said the administration underestimated the risk of mistakenly removing voters from voter rolls due to inaccuracies in the Systematic Alien Eligibility Verification (SAVE) database.
“The challenged policies represent an attempt by the federal government to determine who gets the right to vote,” Skunanan wrote, adding that Congress has delegated that power to the states.
The Justice Department said it was reviewing the ruling.
Ming Chan, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, said the ruling makes clear that the administration cannot use the federal government to interfere with elections or jeopardize voters’ rights.
“The Trump administration has repeatedly taken extreme measures to disrupt the way the election is conducted, undermine confidence in the results, and sow chaos,” Chan said in a statement.
Despite studies showing voter fraud is rare, President Trump last year directed the department to crack down on voting by ineligible people. The department then requested unredacted voter rolls containing sensitive personal information from nearly all 50 states.
Eighteen states, mostly Republican-led, responded. The agency matched the data with SAVE and flagged people identified as non-citizens for possible removal from voter rolls.
Skunanan said the database could contain outdated citizenship records and could misidentify naturalized U.S. citizens.
The department also sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for refusing to provide voter data. 26 cases were dismissed.
In a separate case in June, Mr. Sukhnanan blocked the expanded use of the SAVE database for voter roll checks, but the U.S. Supreme Court suspended that order last month.
Federal law prohibits the systematic purging of voter rolls 90 days before a federal election, potentially limiting the practical effect of the ruling before the Nov. 3 vote.
