US judge rules Trump administration's voter data use unlawful

A United States federal judge has ruled that the Justice Department acted unlawfully when it sought state voter rolls to cross-check against a federal immigration database in order to identify voters it deemed ineligible.

US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued the ruling on Friday, dealing another setback to President Donald Trump's efforts to expand federal oversight of elections ahead of the midterms, as Republicans aim to keep control of Congress.

In a 78-page decision siding with the watchdog group Common Cause, Sooknanan found that the administration had downplayed the risk of wrongly removing eligible citizens from voter rolls due to inaccuracies in the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database. She stated that the policy amounted to an attempt by the federal government to determine who is allowed to vote, a power she said Congress had reserved for individual states.

The Justice Department said it was reviewing the court's decision.

Ming Cheung, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project, said the ruling confirmed that the administration could not use federal power to interfere with elections or threaten voters' rights, and accused the administration of repeatedly taking extreme steps that undermine confidence in election outcomes and create confusion.

Last year, Trump had directed the Justice Department to take action against voting by ineligible individuals, despite research indicating that voter fraud is uncommon. The department subsequently requested unredacted voter roll data, including sensitive personal information, from nearly all 50 states.