Activist Judge Strikes Again—Shields Voter Rolls from Federal Scrutiny
Supreme Court already blocked an earlier obstruction; it should now end this Biden appointee's campaign against voter list maintenance.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan vacated the Department of Justice's (DOJ) important nationwide voter list-maintenance policy. This October 9 ruling continues the Biden appointee's pattern of deploying every conceivable argument to prevent President Donald Trump's administration from verifying that only eligible U.S. citizens remain on the states' voter rolls.
In Common Cause v. U.S. Department of Justice, Sooknanan ruled that the DOJ exceeded its authority when it sought unredacted voter rolls from states, shared them with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and used the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to identify noncitizens. She declared that neither the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), nor the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) authorized the effort, while also finding violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Her decision applies even to the 18 states that voluntarily turned over their files.
States with bloated rolls containing dead voters, people who moved, and noncitizens have long resisted basic transparency. They and their leftist allies like the League of Women Voters have found a reliable ally in Sooknanan.
Sloppy Voter Rolls Are a Problem
As recently as October 12, the DOJ filed charges against 16 individuals for voter fraud, including an illegal alien. The department's list-maintenance project came in direct response to documented problems, including thousands of noncitizen registrations uncovered in New Jersey earlier this year.
Rather than enforce the laws Congress wrote for list maintenance, Sooknanan effectively declared the federal government powerless to inspect the very records states already collect from registrants.
Sooknanan's Record of Flawed Legal Reasoning
In June 2026, Sooknanan blocked the 2025 modifications to SAVE that integrated Social Security Administration records and allowed states to run bulk citizenship checks to ensure they did not have noncitizens on their rolls. She claimed the changes violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the APA.
On September 25, the Supreme Court stayed that order in a 6–3 decision in Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters. The majority held that 8 U.S.C. § 1373, enacted as part of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, authorizes the information sharing "notwithstanding any other provision" of law and requires DHS to respond to state and local inquiries.
The Supreme Court essentially said Sooknanan, whose seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was confirmed at the tail end of former President Joe Biden's term, cannot rely on laws Congress has already superseded to fit her opinion. The stay restored SAVE functionality, including Social Security number-based and bulk queries. States may again use the system voluntarily while the D.C. Circuit appeal proceeds.
In October, North Carolina, through its use of the SAVE database, has sent letters to 1,392 registered voters it suspects lack U.S. citizenship, according to the state's Board of Elections, or NCSBE. The discovery "represents a small percentage" of North Carolina's 7.9 million registered voters. Yet, "one ineligible registrant is still one too many," notes NCSBE Director Sam Hayes in the October 13 release. These voters have the opportunity to prove they are citizens or voluntarily request removal from the rolls.
Voter Rolls Are Not Classified Files
Sooknanan's most recent opinion joins a string of district-court losses for the DOJ on list-maintenance demands. Yet her reasoning collapses under scrutiny.
As Restoration News has previously reported, the CRA of 1960 requires states to preserve and produce the information individuals provide when they register to vote. The electronic voter rolls states maintain today are simply the digitized version of those same registration forms. Courts that treat the law as limited to paper records from the pre-computer era are inventing a distinction Congress never drew.
Hans von Spakovsky of Advancing American Freedom has correctly noted that the DOJ doesn't even need to rely on the CRA. The more recent NVRA and HAVA specifically charge the Office of the Attorney General with enforcing list-maintenance obligations. Those statutes exist precisely so the federal government—and the public itself—can examine whether states are removing ineligible names. Denying access to the lists makes these laws' enforcement impossible.
The lower courts remain split on this issue. The 1st Circuit has held that voter rolls are covered by the NVRA's transparency provisions, while the liberal 9th Circuit recently ruled that they are not. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, joined by the Center for Election Confidence and Judicial Watch, has petitioned the Supreme Court to settle the question. Until the Supreme Court addresses it, activist judges will continue to treat every federal request for basic voter data as an existential threat to privacy or voting rights.
Noncitizen registrations and other inaccuracies thrive in the absence of oversight. The Supreme Court's September stay evidences that a majority of the Court understands the federal government's legitimate role in assisting states with accurate rolls. The same majority should now reject Sooknanan's claim that the DOJ cannot examine the rolls it is charged with policing.
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