US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan / screen imageA Biden-appointed federal judge has once again stepped in to shield dirty voter rolls from federal scrutiny, striking down the Justice Department’s nationwide effort to collect registration records and identify suspected non-U.S. citizens on the rolls.U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, ruled that the Department of Justice overstepped its bounds by demanding unredacted voter registration lists and cross-referencing them using federal databases.According to the 78-page ruling, the DOJ began requesting complete, unredacted statewide voter registration lists (including names, dates of birth, addresses, and driver’s license or partial Social Security numbers) from 49 states and the District of Columbia starting in May 2025. At least 18 states fully cooperated.The department then shared the data with DHS for runs through the expanded Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system and urged states to remove voters flagged as potentially ineligible.The Justice Department maintained that its actions were authorized by federal laws governing voter registration and election administration.Sooknanan rejected that argument.Sooknanan concluded that the Justice Department’s policy violated the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act, exceeded the agency’s statutory authority, and was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.She wrote that the policy “flies in the face of duly enacted laws designed to protect Americans” and accused the DOJ of attempting to “decide who gets to vote.” She claimed the administration failed to adequately weigh the risk that flawed federal databases could wrongly flag eligible citizens.This is not the first time Judge Sooknanan has ruled against the Trump administration’s voter citizenship verification efforts.As The Gateway Pundit reported in June, Sooknanan previously blocked the administration’s expanded Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.That June 22 ruling concerned modifications allowing federal agencies to combine citizenship and Social Security information to help states verify voter eligibility.Sooknanan found that the expanded system violated federal privacy protections and other statutory requirements.The administration challenged that ruling, setting off a separate legal battle over the government’s ability to maintain and operate the expanded citizenship database.On September 4, Gateway Pundit reported that two Obama-appointed judges on the D.C. Circuit rejected an emergency request to restore the expanded SAVE system while the administration’s appeal proceeded.Trump-appointed Judge Gregory Katsas dissented.Then, on September 25, the Supreme Court temporarily permitted the government to resume certain expanded SAVE operations while litigation continued, as described in subsequent Gateway Pundit reporting.Friday’s decision represents a separate challenge to the Justice Department’s nationwide voter-roll collection policy, rather than a reversal of the Supreme Court’s temporary order concerning SAVE.Trump DOJ Previously Reported Thousands of Suspected Noncitizen RegistrationsThe Gateway Pundit reported in March that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon had described a federal review of voter registration records provided by 16 cooperating states.According to Dhillon’s reported findings, the investigation identified tens of thousands of suspected noncitizen registrations, along with duplicate records and registrations associated with deceased individuals.The post Biden-Appointed Activist Judge Sparkle Sooknanan Blocks Trump DOJ’s Nationwide Voter Roll Cleanup Effort — Even in States That Voluntarily Cooperated appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.