Florida judge orders DHS to restore voter verification database, setting up legal clash with D.C. ruling
A federal judge in Florida ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore key features of a citizenship verification system that states use to maintain their voter rolls, ruling Tuesday that the agency violated a settlement agreement by disabling the tools under pressure from a competing court order out of Washington, D.C.U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II found that DHS was "plainly in violation" of its deal with states, including Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana, by shutting down the bulk-upload and Social Security number search functions of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, known as SAVE.
The ruling hands the Trump administration a significant win in its push to tighten election integrity safeguards, but it also drops DHS squarely between two federal judges issuing contradictory commands.
The order, first reported by Just The News, gives DHS until July 14 to file a status report on its compliance.
The SAVE system was enhanced under the Trump administration to better support state election integrity efforts, including the maintenance of voter rolls.
Under a 2025 settlement resolving a 2024 Florida lawsuit against the Biden administration, DHS agreed to provide states with expanded access to the database, including the ability to run bulk uploads and search by Social Security number to verify a registrant's citizenship or immigration status.
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