Judge Blocks DOJ’s Nationwide Voter Roll Cleanup Effort
Biden-appointed judge halts DOJ’s nationwide voter roll cleanup, citing privacy and legal concerns.
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A Biden-appointed federal judge has blocked the Department of Justice’s nationwide effort to clean up voter rolls, ruling that the agency overstepped its authority. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, found that the DOJ’s demand for unredacted voter registration lists and cross-referencing them with federal databases violated the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act.
DOJ’s Nationwide Voter Roll Cleanup
The Justice Department began requesting complete, unredacted statewide voter registration lists from 49 states and the District of Columbia in May 2025. At least 18 states fully cooperated with the effort, which involved sharing data with DHS for runs through the expanded Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system. The DOJ argued that its actions were authorized by federal laws governing voter registration and election administration.
Legal Challenges and Previous Rulings
Sooknanan concluded that the DOJ’s policy violated the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act, exceeded the agency’s statutory authority, and was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. She wrote that the policy “flies in the face of duly enacted laws designed to protect Americans” and accused the DOJ of attempting to “decide who gets to vote.” She also claimed the administration failed to adequately weigh the risk that flawed federal databases could wrongly flag eligible citizens.
This is not the first time Judge Sooknanan has ruled against the Trump administration’s voter citizenship verification efforts. In June, she previously blocked the administration’s expanded SAVE system, which allowed federal agencies to combine citizenship and Social Security information to help states verify voter eligibility. The administration challenged that ruling, leading to a separate legal battle over the government’s ability to maintain and operate the expanded citizenship database.
Supreme Court Involvement
On September 4, two Obama-appointed judges on the D.C. Circuit rejected an emergency request to restore the expanded SAVE system while the administration’s appeal proceeded. Trump-appointed Judge Gregory Katsas dissented. Later, on September 25, the Supreme Court temporarily permitted the government to resume certain expanded SAVE operations while litigation continued.
Friday’s decision represents a separate challenge to the Justice Department’s nationwide voter-roll collection policy, rather than a reversal of the Supreme Court’s temporary order concerning SAVE. The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon described a federal review of voter registration records provided by 16 cooperating states. According to Dhillon’s reported findings, the investigation identified tens of thousands of suspected noncitizen registrations, along with duplicate records and registrations associated with deceased individuals.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
