Judge vacates Justice Department voter data policy

A federal judge on Friday vacated the Justice Department’s policy for collecting and reviewing state voter-registration data, ruling that the program exceeded federal authority and violated protections governing voter information. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s 78-page decision set aside a policy that sought unredacted voter rolls from states, compared the records with federal citizenship data, including the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, and urged states to remove people flagged as potentially ineligible. The case was brought by Common Cause and individual voters. Sooknanan found that Congress had not authorized the department to direct state voter-roll maintenance. She also concluded that the policy violated federal privacy and other legal requirements, and did not adequately account for the risk that inaccurate citizenship records could wrongly identify eligible voters. The opinion described instances in which citizens were mistakenly removed from voter rolls. At least 18 states provided registration records to the department, according to court filings described in reports. The records included sensitive personal information.