U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued a Sparkle Sooknanan judge ruling on Monday in Washington, D.C., setting aside the Trump administration's overhaul of the SAVE system. She said the government unlawfully created a centralized database containing Americans' private information.
The ruling halts a database change that had expanded SAVE to include records of natural-born citizens, Social Security numbers and bulk searches. The plaintiffs said states then used the system to run voter registration lists and purge people incorrectly identified as noncitizens.
Sooknanan's Monday ruling
Sooknanan said the administration violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. In her written ruling, she said the federal government had knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.
She wrote, "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." She also wrote, "This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens."
SAVE and the Trump order
The overhaul followed an executive order signed by President Trump last year that sought to impose a new proof-of-citizenship requirement for people registering to vote. That directive led DHS and the SSA to create a database that would let state and local officials verify citizenship or immigration status.
The Trump administration argued that SAVE has been used since 1986 as a clear congressional directive to break down information silos between government agencies. Sooknanan rejected that defense and said the administration flunked compliance with the three laws by haphazardly combining and repurposing private information.
League of Women Voters case
The League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and five individuals sued DHS, the SSA and the Department of Justice. Their case challenged the transformation of SAVE into a searchable national citizenship data system built from records held by DHS and the SSA.
The judge's order leaves the overhaul set aside, and the record before the court centers on whether states used the modified system to remove citizens from voter rolls after they were wrongly labeled as noncitizens. The plaintiffs' account points to that result, but the ruling does not put a number on how many voters were affected.
