Judge Orders DHS to Restore 4 States' Voter-Check Access to SAVE Data, Defying 2-Week-Old Block
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 7
Judge Orders DHS to Restore 4 States' Voter-Check Access to SAVE Data, Defying 2-Week-Old Block
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 7
Summary
Four Republican-led states — Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana — regained access Tuesday to DHS citizenship data for voter-roll screening under a federal judge’s order in Florida.
A 10-page ruling by Judge T. Kent Wetherell II said a 2025 settlement required DHS to cooperate with Florida on modernizing the SAVE database and to permit bulk state searches.
The order directly conflicts with a Washington federal judge’s ruling two weeks earlier that using SAVE for voter screening likely violated limits on disclosing Social Security records.
That Washington decision also warned the merged database could contain outdated citizenship information, raising the risk that eligible voters could be wrongly removed from the rolls.
The split deepens a broader fight over Trump administration efforts to expand federal involvement in election administration through settlements with aligned states.