Federal Judge Orders Overhaul of Database Texas Used to Flag Voter Information

A federal judge is ordering the Trump administration to dismantle a voter-eligibility database program that may have produced inaccurate citizenship data, but states like Texas have already been using the tool to cross-check voter information.

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database was created to verify immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits, but was expanded last year to include private information such as Social Security numbers. The court found that this system provided states with inaccurate data, leading to the “active” and “haphazard” removal of alleged noncitizens from voter rolls.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said Congress had expressed its opposition to centralizing personal information of this sort multiple times, adding that the administration and federal agencies “knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Judge Sooknanan wrote in her ruling. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

How Texas Turned to SAVE to Vet Voters

The SAVE database was updated and overhauled by President Donald Trump last year, allowing states to use it freely to verify the citizenship status of registered voters. Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said this was a “game changer,” flagging 2,724 potential noncitizens among the state's 18 million registered voters.

“The SAVE database has proven to be a critically important data set and one of many that we will continue to use in Texas to ensure that only qualified voters cast a ballot in our elections,” Nelson said.

The latest federal court ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters and other advocacy groups, which argued that the SAVE database can contain inaccurate information that state officials were not adequately verifying before using it. In April, Secretary Nelson faced a separate lawsuit over similar concerns.

According to the Secretary of State’s office, the files for the flagged voters were sent to county officials for further investigation. If found ineligible, the voter would be notified and asked to provide proof of citizenship within 30 days.

“Everyone’s right to vote is sacred and must be protected. We encourage counties to conduct rigorous investigations to determine if any voter is ineligible — just as they do with any other data set we provide,” Nelson said.

A Reliable Tool or a Rushed Rollout?

However, questions have been raised about the accuracy of the data used to identify potentially ineligible voters.

An investigation by the Texas Tribune and ProPublica found that the federal SAVE database did not always have up-to-date information on voters’ citizenship status, as some claimed DHS’s rollout of the program did not include sufficient verification measures. As a result, reporters found that states like Texas may have flagged some voters even though other agencies had records confirming their citizenship.

But, regardless of how current citizenship information is, others argue that no federal database should include personal and legally protected information.

Marcia Johnson, chief of activation and justice for the League of Women Voters, said SAVE and other similar programs leave certain communities vulnerable to investigations and being unlawfully purged from voter rolls.

“Today’s decision is a resounding victory for voters,” Johnson said. “Efforts to create a federal voter database to facilitate voter purges threaten the fundamental right at the heart of our democracy.