Courts Restrict Trump Administration’s Push Over Alleged Noncitizen Voting

Overview

• Federal judges issued rulings that in recent days suspended Homeland Security Investigations field operations in multiple states and prevented the Department of Justice from forcing states to exclude ballots flagged as possible noncitizens.
• The administration escalated cross-checks of state voter rolls with the federal SAVE immigration database and compiled lists of suspected noncitizen registrants, prompting legal challenges from states and voting groups.
• Independent checks found substantial errors in federal lists, with UCLA researchers and state officials reporting many mismatches and confirmed U.S. citizens among names the government flagged, raising risks of wrongful disenfranchisement and voter intimidation.
• The DOJ says it will keep pursuing legal and observational steps to enforce federal voting rules even after courts curtailed tactics, while judges emphasized that states control election administration and that inaccurate federal lists create real harms.
• High early voting totals and projections favoring Democrats for the House make the legal fights materially consequential, and close contests such as the Alaska Senate race — complicated by a same-name candidate and slow mail and remote-area counts — could take days or weeks to resolve.