A federal judge finds a Trump data system to verify voters is unlawful

NPR reports that a federal judge ruled yesterday that the Trump administration's effort to aggregate Americans' personal data to verify voter eligibility is unlawful. As a result, the data tool known as SAVE cannot be used in its current form. Several states have already processed their entire voter lists through the system, which the Trump administration overhauled last year. While the tool aims to identify potential noncitizens and deceased voters, it has mistakenly flagged a number of U.S. citizens who are foreign-born as potential noncitizens. NPR first reported on the U.S. government's expansion of SAVE as a tool to check the citizenship of all Americans, and on how the government failed to follow the required public notice requirements of the Privacy Act.

"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," U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, wrote in her 75-page ruling. "This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens."