Federal Judge Vacates DOJ's Nationwide Voter-Roll Policy: 'The Federal Government's Attempt to Decide Who Gets to Vote'

Federal Judge Vacates DOJ's Nationwide Voter-Roll Policy: 'The Federal Government's Attempt to Decide Who Gets to Vote'

NEW (Oct. 9, 2026): U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sookhanan (D.D.C.) issued a 78-page ruling Friday in the Common Cause challenge that does what 25 separate state-by-state losses never did: it strikes down the Justice Department's nationwide voter-roll policy itself — the program of demanding complete voter files from every state, running them against federal citizenship databases, and pressuring states to remove flagged voters. The ruling lands 25 days before the Nov. 3 midterms.

Sookhanan held the policy violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Privacy Act, and noted the federal comparison databases could contain "inaccuracies." Crucially, the ruling applies both to the voter files DOJ has already received (18 states fully cooperated) and to the files still being litigated — reaching the whole apparatus at once.

The ruling's core, in the judge's own words:

"The Justice Department 'cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of the American people.'" — (CBS News)

"The challenged policy represents the federal government's attempt to decide who gets to vote. But Congress has left that authority where our Constitution has always placed it: with the states¹."² — (CBS News)

She was careful to bound the holding: "Today's decision does not prevent the federal government from taking lawful steps to support states' efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls... Rather, the Court vacates a policy that has removed United States citizens from the voter rolls in their home states and risks disenfranchising many more."

What it means: This is the policy-level counterpart to the state-by-state collapse tracked in DOJ's Voter-Roll Data Campaign Falls to 0-for-25: Washington Dismissed With Prejudice — the first time a court has vacated the program rather than dismissing an individual state suit. It also tightens the vise around the citizenship-verification machinery: Sookhanan is the same judge whose June ruling held the overhauled SAVE database unlawful (a ruling the Supreme Court stayed 6-3 on Sept. 25 — SAVE Voter-Citizenship Database: Opposition Briefed at SCOTUS as Ruling Looms), so the D.C. District has now ruled against both the database and the demand-side policy. Practical effect on Nov. 3 is blunted by the NVRA's 90-day quiet period, but the ruling defines the post-midterm legal baseline. Common Cause CEO Virginia Kase Solomón called it "a victory for voters and yet another loss for the Department of Justice"; DOJ says only that it is "reviewing the decision" — see the registered watch for the appeal question.