Voting rights advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to halt a Trump administration initiative that consolidates federal and state voter data into a comprehensive citizenship and voter fraud database. The coalition argues this initiative violates decades-old privacy laws.
Last week, the League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and five individuals filed suit in D.C. District Court, alleging the administration is creating expansive “national data banks” of personal information on Americans and disregarding federal privacy statutes. The groups formally requested an emergency injunction Tuesday to stop the overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.
Court Asked to Block Trump Administration’s National Voter Database Initiative
The coalition, represented by Democracy Forward Foundation, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and Fair Elections Center, is asking the court to stop the Trump administration’s move to transform SAVE into a tool for tracking potential noncitizens registered to vote. Until this year, SAVE was a limited federal database primarily used to verify the immigration status of individuals seeking federal benefits.
“This administration’s attempt to manipulate federal data systems to unlawfully target its own citizens and purge voters is one of the most serious threats to free and fair elections in decades,” Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, stated. “The League is asking the court to act swiftly to stop this abuse of power before it disenfranchises lawful voters. Every citizen deserves privacy, fairness, and the freedom to vote without fear of government interference.”
In a court filing on October 7, the groups asserted that an immediate injunction is necessary to prevent permanent privacy damage caused by the “illegal and secretive consolidation of millions of Americans’ sensitive personal data across government agencies into centralized data systems” through SAVE.
The lawsuit specifically targets the overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, calling it a particularly harmful and urgent aspect of the administration’s actions. Beyond SAVE, the complaint references “at least one other Interagency Data System that consolidates other data sources from around the government that might have information concerning immigrants into a centralized ‘data lake’ housed at” U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services.
Concerns Over Privacy Act Violations
Federal agencies collect substantial amounts of data on Americans as part of their regular operations. However, the advocacy groups contend that the 1974 Privacy Act and other privacy laws were specifically enacted to prevent the creation of large, centralized federal datasets on citizens, such as the one the administration is assembling.
Subsequent amendments to the Privacy Act in 1988 expressly prohibited the use of “computer matching programs,” which compare data across different agencies, without prior congressional notification or publicizing written agreements between the involved agencies. This requirement aimed to prevent the government from building extensive surveillance tools without oversight.
As reported earlier this year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), in conjunction with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), began merging SAVE data with other significant federal data streams, including Social Security data. This consolidation occurred while fees were being removed and technical capabilities for states to conduct bulk searches of voters against the database were being developed. The Department of Justice has sought voter data from all 50 states, with varying levels of compliance.
A redacted copy of the Social Security Administration’s information-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was released, indicating that personnel have been directed to comply with verification and information-sharing requirements, “taking into account federal statutory requirements, including the Privacy Act of 1974.”
Administration officials maintain that the database overhaul is essential for combating noncitizen voting and other forms of voter fraud. However, numerous academic studies and post-election audits have indicated that such fraud is exceedingly rare, occurring only in a limited number of isolated cases.
DOGE officials are specifically named in the lawsuit, accused of a “months-long campaign to access, collect and consolidate vast troves of personal data about millions of U.S. citizens and residents stored at multiple federal agencies.” This past spring, an executive order from the Trump administration sought to grant DOGE and DHS the authority to “review” state voter registration lists and other records to identify noncitizen voters, an order that is itself the subject of separate legal challenges.
Urgency Cited in Lawsuit Filing
The plaintiffs argue that the need for emergency relief is urgent because the Trump administration is simultaneously contesting the accuracy of state voter rolls in various courts and encouraging states to use potentially unreliable citizenship data from the Social Security Administration, now pooled in the overhauled SAVE system. This could lead to voter roll purges ahead of the upcoming November elections and the initiation of criminal investigations into alleged non-citizen voting.
“Both the ongoing misuse of Plaintiffs’ sensitive SSA data through the overhauled SAVE system, and the increased risk of cybertheft and additional misuse, qualify as irreparable injuries,” the filing states, highlighting concerns about data security and potential for further exploitation.
The court is expected to consider the request for an emergency injunction. The outcome of this motion will determine whether the SAVE system’s data consolidation efforts are temporarily halted while the broader lawsuit proceeds. The administration’s response to the lawsuit and its continued pursuit of state voter data will be closely watched in the coming weeks.