Judge's voter roll ruling halts DOJ national purge plan

A federal judge in Washington on October 9 struck down the Justice Department's nationwide push to collect state voter registration records and order purges, ruling in a 78-page decision that the department exceeded its legal authority and broke federal privacy laws. The voter roll ruling hands the Trump administration a major legal setback in its election-integrity campaign, weeks before voters decide control of Congress. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote that the department tried to twist civil rights statutes into a tool for stripping names from voter lists. "DOJ cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of American people," she wrote, in a passage quoted by CNN.

The program began last year, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal officials to help identify potential election-law violations, part of an election-integrity drive he has made a centerpiece of his political career. The Justice Department followed with sweeping demands for unredacted voter registration lists from nearly every state, asking for names, addresses, and partial Social Security numbers. Officials then cross-checked the records against a federal immigration database known as SAVE and instructed states to remove voters the department deemed ineligible. The administration argues stronger safeguards are needed to ensure only eligible voters take part in federal contests. States were told to "clean" their rolls after the department finished its audit, according to court filings. The agreements behind that demand became the target of the lawsuit the voter roll ruling resolved this week.

The court's reasoning

Sooknanan ruled that Congress left the power to maintain voter rolls with the states, not with Washington. "Behind all the window dressing, the challenged policy represents the federal government's attempt to decide who gets to vote," she wrote. "But Congress has left that authority where our Constitution has always placed it: with the states." The department had pointed to the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and two other federal registration laws as permission for its data grab. The judge rejected that reading outright. "They are wrong," she wrote. "In fact, it would turn these voter-protection laws on their head to find that they authorize DOJ's unprecedented actions."

The voter roll ruling also noted that the judge was joining 25 other district judges who have rejected the department's claim that civil rights law entitles it to states' voter records. At least 18 states turned over their unredacted registration lists before Friday's decision, and it remains unclear what the department has done with the data it obtained, Reuters reported. The audit agreements offered to states required them to purge their rolls within 45 days of the department completing its review.

Why November matters

The case was brought in April by the voting-rights group Common Cause and four voters, who warned the policy amounted to a "sprawling new voter surveillance and purging apparatus" ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, in which control of Congress is at stake. The plaintiffs argued that flaws in the SAVE immigration database could lead to eligible citizens, including naturalized Americans, being wrongly flagged as noncitizens and stripped from the rolls. Sooknanan agreed, writing that the department had downplayed the risk of wrongful disenfranchisement despite evidence the database could be inaccurate.

The voter roll ruling does not prevent states from keeping their own rolls accurate or running their own citizenship checks, and it leaves the federal government free to support states through lawful means. Federal law generally prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, though some local jurisdictions allow it in certain local contests, so the ruling changes little for states already following the rules. Separately, the Supreme Court has temporarily paused an earlier Sooknanan order that blocked an expanded use of the SAVE database for voter-roll checks. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Common Cause called the voter roll ruling a win for voters in a statement after the decision, saying the department had tried to federalize a job that belongs to the states. For now, the audit is dead: Sooknanan vacated the policy nationwide, blocking it even in states that had voluntarily cooperated. Any future version of the program would have to survive a court willing to read the law differently than she did.

Sources: CNN, The Hill