Published
June 30, 2026
A District of Columbia federal judge has unwound the government's signature 2025 effort to verify voter citizenship en masse — finding the agencies built a centralized database of Americans' Social Security data that the law was specifically written to prevent.
What Is This About?
On June 22, 2026, Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs in League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 1:25-cv-03501 (D.D.C.), and vacated the 2025 overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system. The court held that the modified system — and the related System of Records Notices later published by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration — were unlawful under the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).The case was brought by the League of Women Voters, several of its state affiliates, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) against DHS, SSA, and other federal officials. It is not a class action: an early motion to certify a class was withdrawn, the individual "Doe" plaintiffs were dropped, and the organizations proceeded on associational standing on behalf of their members. There is no settlement, no fund, and nothing to claim — this is a ruling on government policy.
Status
Vacated · DOJ Appeal Pending
Ruling Date
June 22, 2026
U.S. District Court, District of Columbia
Can I Claim?
No — nothing to claim (policy ruling)
How SAVE Changed in 2025
SAVE is a DHS system that state and local agencies have long used to check the immigration or citizenship status of people applying for benefits and, in some cases, registering to vote. The 2025 overhaul followed Executive Order 14248, which directed agencies to give states tools to verify the citizenship of registered voters.According to the administrative record summarized by the court, the modified SAVE changed the old system in three major ways: it pulled in records of natural-born U.S. citizens for the first time; it linked to SSA's master file of Social Security number holders, so searches could run on full or partial Social Security numbers; and it added the ability to run bulk searches of many people at once rather than one individual at a time.
Why the Court Found It Unlawful
The court concluded the overhaul broke several laws at once. First, it found the system disclosed Social Security numbers and related records in violation of the Social Security Act's confidentiality provision (42 U.S.C. § 405(c)(2)(C)(viii)). Second, it found the data sharing violated the Privacy Act's substantive bar on non-consensual disclosure, because using SSA data for voter verification was not a "routine use" compatible with why the data was originally collected. Third, it found the agencies skipped the Privacy Act's required 30-day notice-and-comment step — launching the modified system in May 2025 and only publishing notices months later, with the changes already in effect. The court held that this also made the action arbitrary and capricious under the APA.The opinion also pointed to the agencies' own internal "Privacy Threshold Analysis" documents, which the court said showed DHS was aware the modification was "not in compliance" with the Privacy Act and that gaps in SSA citizenship data "could cause incomplete or false results." The court noted that because there is no requirement to update SSA records after naturalizing, some naturalized citizens can still be listed as non-citizens in those files.
Who Was Affected
The record before the court included sworn declarations from naturalized U.S. citizens in Texas whose voter registrations were flagged — and in some cases cancelled — after their information was run through the modified SAVE system and matched against outdated SSA citizenship data. Some were required to provide proof of citizenship within 30 days to avoid losing their registration. The court treated this disruption, and the risk of wrongful removal from the rolls, as concrete injuries supporting the organizations' standing to sue.For readers following related government cases, OCA has also covered the separate Social Security class action over data access and a recent Supreme Court ruling on mail-ballot deadlines.
What Happens Next
The district court vacated and set aside both the modified SAVE system and the 2025 DHS and SSA System of Records Notices, which returns SAVE to its prior functionality. On June 25, 2026, the federal defendants filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, so the dispute is not over. If the government wants to revive any part of the program, the court said it must "deal with the problem afresh" and follow the Privacy Act's notice-and-comment requirements first.Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a settlement or anything to claim?No. This is an APA ruling, not a class action settlement. No class was certified and there is no claim form, fund, or payment.
What did the court actually rule?
It granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs and vacated the 2025 modified SAVE system and the related DHS and SSA System of Records Notices as violations of the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the APA.
Is the ruling final?
Not yet. The federal defendants appealed to the D.C. Circuit on June 25, 2026. The vacatur stands unless modified on appeal.
Why were some naturalized citizens flagged as non-citizens?
SSA records are not always updated when someone naturalizes, so the court found that some naturalized citizens with outdated records were incorrectly identified as potential non-citizens when voter rolls were run through the modified system.
Sources
- Memorandum Opinion and Order, League of Women Voters v. U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, No. 1:25-cv-03501 (D.D.C. June 22, 2026)
- Notice of Appeal to the D.C. Circuit (filed June 25, 2026)
- U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
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Status
Vacated · DOJ Appeal Pending
Case Title
League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Case Number
1:25-cv-03501 (SLS)
Court
U.S. District Court, District of Columbia
Date Filed
September 30, 2025
Official Source
U.S. District Court (D.D.C.)
