Why Trump’s voter roll consolidation attempts are illegal and other frequently asked questions

Since President Donald Trump took office for a second time, his administration has repeatedly attempted to interfere with elections, despite the fact that the Constitution makes it clear that states, not the federal government, run elections. One of the major fights is over whether the Trump administration can force states to turn over their voter rolls and then compile them into a single database. While some states have complied with these demands, many states have resisted.

These efforts to illegally access and consolidate state voter rolls have met with numerous legal challenges, including cases brought by state attorneys general, voting rights groups, individual voters and more. The DOJ itself has also sued states in an effort to obtain their voter rolls. So far, the Trump administration’s efforts have been roundly rejected, as courts across the country have blocked the unconstitutional overreaches and defended Americans’ privacy and voting rights. 

Here’s what you need to know about the Trump administration’s efforts to illegally compile voter data, the efforts to block it and how else they’re attempting—and largely failing—to interfere with elections:

What is the DOJ doing with voter rolls? 

In spring 2025, the DOJ started trying to collect voter roll information, including highly sensitive personal information, from every U.S. state. By demanding fully unredacted voter files from states, the DOJ is constructing the first national database of voter records. 

That is a serious overreach into states’ administration of elections, and it is being conducted without any apparent guardrails to protect voters’ personal information. The government has not followed its own legal requirements for collecting personal information under the Privacy Act, which requires disclosing how the data will be used, explaining how it will be stored and protected and providing transparency about data sharing between agencies and with outside actors. Meanwhile, despite these failings, the Trump administration has sought to withhold millions of dollars in federal anti-terrorism funding from cities and counties that refuse to comply.

Despite these serious constitutional and legal problems, several states agreed to share their voter rolls with the DOJ—and that’s where Common Cause et al. v. DOJ comes in.

What is Common Cause et al v. DOJ seeking to do?

Common Cause v. DOJ is seeking to protect the personal information and voting rights of citizens in states that have voluntarily shared their voter roll information with the DOJ. Those states include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. 

Data that has been requested, and shared by many of these states, goes far beyond what is necessary for any legitimate election purpose. The data requested includes Social Security numbers, drivers license numbers, voting history, partisan registration and many more pieces of personally identifying information. 

The lawsuit seeks to block the DOJ from unlawfully creating a national voter database using the voter rolls it has obtained from states, which could be used to surveil and purge voters.

How do the DOJ’s actions violate the law and threaten privacy and voting rights?

The DOJ has ignored critical privacy safeguards required by federal law, and it is planning to run the data it collects through a flawed and inaccurate database, known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which could prevent eligible voters from voting. That has already happened in states that have run their own data through SAVE. To do this, the DOJ is expected to share the data it has collected with the Department of Homeland Security.

The federal government does not have a role in state voter list maintenance, and has no right to compel states to purge voters from the rolls, which appears to be the DOJ’s endgame in collecting this data.

I’ve heard about the DOJ suing states for their voter roll information. How does this case relate to those lawsuits?

Many states refused to turn over their voter roll information when the DOJ requested it in early 2025. The DOJ has since sued 30 states and Washington, DC to obtain their voter rolls—and crucially, no court has yet ruled in the DOJ’s favor, at either the district or appeals court level. Twenty-three cases have already been dismissed on the merits, and one appeals court has affirmed the dismissal of the DOJ’s lawsuit against the state of Michigan. Common Cause v. DOJ is separate from these lawsuits, as it seeks to protect voters in states that reportedly have turned over their voter rolls.

What is the SAVE database and what’s wrong with using it for voter eligibility? 

The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (or SAVE) database is a longstanding system at US Citizenship and Immigration Services that was created to verify immigrants’ eligibility for certain government benefits. It was never intended to be used to verify citizenship status or determine voter eligibility. 

In 2025, the Trump administration expanded SAVE significantly, without following notice and comment procedures required by the Privacy Act before connecting it to Social Security Administration records.

SAVE was never intended to be used to verify voter eligibility, and has proven to be unreliable for that purpose, which the administration has itself admitted. As mentioned above, some states have already run their voter rolls through the SAVE database, which has already resulted in numerous eligible voters being wrongfully flagged, with some having been removed from voter rolls or even prevented from voting in elections.

Are states using the SAVE database to purge voters right now? 

Right now, the use of the SAVE database is on pause in all but four states. In a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters of Virginia, League of Women Voters of Louisiana, League of Women Voters of Texas and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), as well as five individual plaintiffs, a district court ruled in June that the government needed to end and disentangle the modified SAVE database. In the ruling, the court said, “the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.”

The federal government has appealed the decision, and requested a stay of the decision pending the appeal, which would allow them to continue to expand the SAVE database. Both the district and appeals courts refused to grant the stay, and the federal government has now asked the Supreme Court, which is considering the request. 

For now, four states—Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Iowa—seem to have access to the SAVE database because they went to court to demand it. However, LWV and its fellow plaintiffs have filed and been granted a motion to intervene in that case, and are appealing the ruling in order to again block the use of the database

What does this mean for eligible voters seeking to vote in this fall’s election? 

Eligible voters will be able to vote this fall. 

All voters should check in to confirm your voter registration is active before Election Day, including updating your registration if you’ve moved since the last election. In some states, you may need to present identification to vote, so you should confirm the rule in your state.

Where else has President Trump overstepped his role in election administration?

In addition to DOJ’s unlawful demands for voter rolls from states, Trump has issued two executive orders on elections, both of which overstep the president’s role in election administration. The first, in March 2025, seeks to unilaterally add new requirements to the federal voter registration form, take federal control over some voter roll list maintenance, prohibit states from processing absentee and mail-in ballots received after Election Day and require the review of certain voting systems, potentially leading to their decertification.

Several of those provisions have been blocked by district courts, including the requirement for documentary proof of citizenship for the federal voter registration form, with the courts finding that Trump’s executive order was unconstitutional and an overreach of presidential power. 

Earlier this year, President Trump issued a second executive order, which again oversteps his authority and role in elections. The order tells DHS to create state lists of eligible voters for federal elections, based on databases like SAVE that the government itself has admitted can be inaccurate. It also purports to require states to submit lists of approved mail-in voters to the U.S. Postal Service well ahead of elections, and seeks to direct USPS to limit ballot delivery to voters on those lists. This would be an alarming step towards restricting mail-in voting which could threaten to disenfranchise numerous eligible voters. These latter two provisions are currently blocked by courts, which found them to be unconstitutional. The provision requiring DHS to create lists of eligible voters is also currently being challenged in court. 

In July, Trump also fired the remaining members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission, which provides assistance to states in administering elections, leaving the commission unable to develop guidance or policy ahead of this fall’s elections.