A federal judge has handed down a significant ruling that could affect how states verify voter eligibility, siding with several states in a legal dispute over a key federal immigration database.
The decision comes after months of courtroom battles over whether the federal government improperly disabled tools that states say are critical for maintaining accurate voter rolls.
U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II on Tuesday ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore several key features of its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, including Social Security number search and bulk-upload capabilities used by states to verify citizenship and immigration status.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by Florida and several other states after DHS disabled the features in June following a separate federal court decision in Washington, D.C.
