Voting rights groups seek to shut down voter purge database in four GOP-led states

Pro-voting groups asked a federal appeals court Monday to stop Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana from using the Trump administration’s expanded SAVE database for mass voter screenings.

A federal judge in Washington D.C. previously struck down the expanded SAVE system nationwide as unlawful and a threat to eligible voters, but a separate judge in Florida ordered the government to keep it running for those four Republican-led states.

SAVE, short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, was originally designed to help government agencies verify immigration status for public benefits, not voter eligibility. The Trump administration expanded it into a much broader tool that states could use to check large groups of voters at once.

The expanded version allows officials to upload voter lists in bulk and search federal records using full or partial Social Security numbers. Voting rights advocates warn that those records can be outdated or incomplete, especially for naturalized citizens whose citizenship status may not have been updated in Social Security records.

A SAVE result does not automatically remove someone from the voter rolls. But a state can use the result to investigate a voter, demand proof of citizenship or cancel a registration. That means eligible voters may be forced to prove that the government’s own records are wrong. 

If they do not respond in time, they could lose their registration or ability to vote even though they are eligible.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled that the Trump administration’s expansion of SAVE violated federal privacy and administrative laws. Her ruling blocked states nationwide from using the expanded system, including its bulk-search tools and its connection to Social Security records.

“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,” Sooknanan wrote. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

But Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana had already reached a settlement with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that promised them access to those same tools. After Sooknanan’s ruling, DHS shut down the expanded system.

The four states then returned to court in Florida and asked U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II to enforce the settlement. Earlier this month, he ordered DHS to restore the bulk-upload and Social Security number search features for those states.

“At some point, one of these orders will have to give,” Wetherell wrote. “But at this point, the Court sees no reason why it should be this Court’s order.”

DHS and the Social Security Administration responded by creating what court filings call a “technical workaround.” Under that arrangement, the four states send their voter lists to DHS, which runs the searches and sends back the results.

Other states remain blocked from using the expanded tools.

The League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center are now challenging that four-state exception in two separate courts.

First, they asked to join the Florida case because DHS appeared unlikely to appeal Wetherell’s order. Wetherell allowed them to intervene Sunday, meaning they became parties to the case for the purpose of challenging his ruling.

They filed their appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the next day.

That appeal does not automatically stop the four states from using SAVE. The groups would need a court to issue a stay — a temporary pause — while the appeal moves forward.

At the same time, the groups are asking Sooknanan to enforce her Washington ruling and shut down the workaround. Their motion says the administration is continuing to operate a system the court already declared unlawful. At minimum, they want the judge to order the Social Security Administration to stop sharing its records because the agency was not part of the Florida case.

For now, the expanded SAVE voter-screening system remains blocked nationwide except in Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana.

The next major decisions will come from the federal appeals courts, which must determine whether the four-state exception can continue or whether the expanded system must be shut down everywhere.