A U.S. District Court judge has blocked the Trump administration from utilizing a modified database system to verify the citizenship status of registered voters. In a 75-page ruling issued on June 22, 2026, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan determined that the administration’s use of the modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system violated federal privacy laws, including the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Privacy Act of 1974.
The court found that the federal government knowingly provided inaccurate data to states, leading to the wrongful removal of eligible citizens from voter rolls. Judge Sooknanan stated that the government had “trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens” through a system that Congress had not authorized. The system was designed to cross-reference citizenship data with Social Security Administration records, including Social Security numbers.
The lawsuit was brought by the League of Women Voters and other advocacy groups, who argued that the system was error-prone and threatened the voting rights of natural-born citizens. Joan Porte, president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia, welcomed the ruling, noting that it protects voters from “unlawful and error-prone systems” that jeopardize registration status based on bureaucratic mistakes.
This ruling marks the latest in a series of legal challenges against the administration’s election integrity efforts. Previous attempts by the White House to demand full voter rolls from states have faced similar judicial resistance, with the administration losing nine prior lawsuits regarding such demands. The White House and the Department of Homeland Security have not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the injunction.