Privacy / Data Quality / Regulation
US court halts DHS and DOJ transmission of 'likely noncitizen' voter lists in Privacy Act and APA challenge
A federal judge in Washington granted a preliminary injunction and stayed the agencies' 'Voter Data Transmission Policy' on the eve of the midterms, after evidence the matched lists misidentified US citizens.
The US District Court for the District of Columbia has granted a preliminary injunction and a stay under 5 U.S.C. § 705 blocking the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice from sending lists of supposed noncitizen voters to state and local election officials. The motion was brought by LULAC and EPIC in a suit also filed by the League of Women Voters.
According to the plaintiffs, the agencies gathered voter rolls from at least 47 states, enriched them with commercially acquired data and matched them against federal databases. The opinion notes that a Los Angeles County list of more than 20,000 records included only 7,035 with county addresses, and that a Nevada review found all 15,903 flagged people were citizens.
The motion argues the transmissions exceed statutory authority under the Administrative Procedure Act, breach the Privacy Act’s disclosure limits and lack a published system of records notice (SORN). The order is preliminary; the case continues.
Why it matters
The opinion turns on core data governance duties: the Privacy Act requires 'reasonable efforts' to ensure records are accurate before disclosure, a published notice describing each routine use, and 30 days' notice before any new use. Teams that match their own records against third-party or commercial data to flag individuals should check how false positives are measured, how naturalised or renamed people are handled, and whether purpose and notice records cover the new use before data is shared externally.
Status: Court ruling. Preliminary injunction and stay; the case continues on the merits
Sources
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Governance areas
Enforcement
- Action
- Court ruling
- Authority
- US District Court for the District of Columbia
- Concerning
- League of Women Voters, LULAC and EPIC v. US Department of Homeland Security and US Department of Justice
- Law
- Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a); Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 705
Case status: Open
Enforcement trackerWho should care
- DPO
- Data stewards
- Legal & compliance
- CDO