Florida federal judge orders DHS to restore voter database access to 4 states: Reports
FILE - A voter fills out their ballot as Prairie Oak Lodge is used as a polling place on June 2, 2026 in Marion, Iowa. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
A federal judge out of Florida has ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to continue allowing four Republican-led states to have access to a database to check the citizenship status of voters, according to multiple reports.
Dig deeper:
The four states included:
- Florida
- Iowa
- Indiana
- Ohio
The order, issued by U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II in Pensacola, comes despite a June 22 decision by another federal judge in Washington, D.C., who ruled use of the database could result in voters being wrongly purged from voter rolls.
The backstory:
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan's June 22 decision halted the use of the revamped database, which contained Social Security numbers, citizenship status, and other data on people nationwide.
Trump’s SAVE program
The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE program, was created under an immigration law mandating that DHS help federal, state and local agencies prevent government benefits from going to noncitizens.
At least 25 states used it to check their voter rolls since April 2025, after the Trump administration significantly expanded its search abilities.
Big picture view:
The executive order seeking to create a national voter list was among numerous steps President Donald Trump took during his second term to try to overhaul the way elections are run.
He also has tried to force voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, ban mail ballots from counting if they are received after Election Day and prohibit the Postal Service from mailing ballots to people not on an approved list of voters.
Most of those steps have been blocked by various courts, in part because the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election rules, but provides no such power to the president.
Voting by noncitizens is already illegal and punishable as a potential felony that could lead to deportation. It also is rare, accounting for just a tiny fraction of those on state voter rolls.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from reporting by Reuters and The New York Times. Previous reporting by The Associated Press also contributed.