Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
The Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot take the names of registered voters and compare them against a federal immigration database, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, based in Washington, handed down an order on Oct. 9 against the department.
The DOJ has been requesting lists of registered voters from states and, after obtaining them, checking them against the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements service, which contains citizenship information.
When people are identified as registered to vote despite not being citizens - according to the SAVE database - the DOJ has been demanding that states remove them from voter rolls.
"The challenged policy represents the federal government's attempt to decide who gets to vote," Sooknanan said. "But Congress has left that authority where our Constitution has always placed it: with the states."
She also said that the department "cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of the American people."
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
"The Trump administration has repeatedly taken extreme measures to interfere with how elections are run, undermine c
