Judge finds a Trump data system to verify voters is unlawful : NPR
NPR Topics: Politics — 2026-06-22 17:25:00 — www.npr.org
President Trump signed an executive order on March 31 directing the Department of Homeland Security to use the SAVE system and other federal data to generate lists of eligible U.S. citizen voters in each state, making SAVE checks central to his voting and elections agenda. This move came despite longstanding federal laws that already prohibit noncitizens from voting and research showing that such incidents are extremely rare.
A federal judge has now ruled that the Trump administration’s overhaul of the SAVE system—which aggregated Americans’ personal data to check voter eligibility—was unlawful and cannot be used in its current form. The judge found that federal agencies had “haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable,” violating the Privacy, Social Security, and Administrative Procedure Acts.
Under Trump’s directive, more than 60 million voter records were run through the revamped SAVE system, but less than 1% were flagged as potential noncitizens. However, the system mistakenly flagged numerous American citizens who are foreign-born, putting their voting rights at risk. In one case, a naturalized citizen was removed from Texas voter rolls after being flagged and only reinstated after proving his citizenship.
Despite legal challenges and widespread public opposition, the Trump administration pressed forward with the SAVE overhaul, with the Department of Justice stating it would “continue to aggressively defend President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda and DHS’s use of the SAVE system to verify citizenship.”
This case highlights the Trump administration’s focus on combating noncitizen voting—a problem that evidence shows is exceedingly rare—while raising significant concerns about privacy rights and the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters. The court’s decision underscores the need for careful oversight and statutory authority before implementing sweeping changes that affect millions of Americans’ fundamental right to vote.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/22/nx-s1-5866719/save-voter-data-trump-judge-unlawful