The Trump administration has been attempting to reshape the American electorate from day one of his second term.
Whether through issuing unconstitutional executive orders that have attempted to end birthright citizenship, illegally impose requirements that would make it harder to register to vote, and upend vote-by-mail, or through advocating for legislation that threatens to disenfranchise millions of Americans, President Trump and his administration have attempted drastic measures to limit the freedom to vote ahead of the 2026 midterms.
One of the latest attempts to undermine federal laws protecting the rights of voters is through systematic voter purges, especially with the unvetted usage of the Systematic Alien Verification of Entitlements (SAVE) system.
Campaign Legal Center has been tracking these purges, the laws that require them, and illegal actions by both the administration and a handful of state legislatures — and we’ve litigated, advocated and worked to ensure that all voters can access the ballot box this fall.
What are voter purges?
Voter purges are efforts to remove a significant number of voters from the registration rolls all at once, ultimately threatening Americans’ freedom to vote. These purges tend to disproportionately target Americans who have faced barriers because of race, ethnicity or economic status as well as voters with past felony convictions, young voters and naturalized citizens.
Voter list maintenance is a routine practice and — when done correctly — can increase the accuracy of voter rolls by removing people no longer eligible to vote in the area, such as people who have passed away or no longer live in the state.
When done incorrectly, eligible voters can be removed from their state’s list of registered voters and denied the freedom to vote. They may not even know they’ve been purged from the voter rolls until it is too late to reregister.
We saw the ramping up of voter purges ahead of the 2024 presidential election, and Campaign Legal Center challenged these illegal actions in Alabama and Virginia.
Now, ahead of the 2026 midterms, states, including Ohio and Texas, are continuing to conduct voter purges. However, these states are doing so in violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The NVRA states that voter roll maintenance cannot be discriminatory.
It also establishes the “quiet period” that prevents states from conducting systematic voter removals within 90 days of an election.
However, many of the voter purge policies states have adopted do not provide safeguards to prevent purges within 90 days of upcoming federal elections and disproportionately affect naturalized citizens through the usage of stale data, like some of the data relied on by the SAVE system.
What is the SAVE system?
Under President Trump, the SAVE system has been expanded beyond its original purpose and consolidated with Social Security Administration (SSA) data to be used to check citizenship.
As such, states can enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to use the expanded SAVE system to conduct their list maintenance.
The problem with using SAVE is that the data is frequently outdated and unreliable. If somebody has become a naturalized citizen since being entered into the SAVE system, they are now eligible to vote.
However, if the SAVE system is not up to date, it would mark somebody as an ineligible voter, therefore disenfranchising them.
Campaign Legal Center filed multiple lawsuits alongside American Oversight for failing to release records about these new federal voter data maintenance efforts, because the Trump administration has provided no explanation of how the system operates or what safeguards exist to protect Americans’ voter information from improper use.
Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging the consolidation of SSA data into the SAVE system. The newly incorporated SSA data is notoriously unreliable, and SSA is not entrusted with making citizenship determinations or formally tracking citizenship status.
Campaign Legal Center is taking action against these purges ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
In February 2026, Campaign Legal Center sued against SB 293, a new, discriminatory law in Ohio.
SB 293 relies on outdated data that disproportionately and discriminatorily impacts naturalized citizens, directs systematic voter purges to occur monthly, even in the 90 days leading up to a federal election, putting this law in direct violation of the NVRA. Additionally, implementation of this law would violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Alongside the ACLU Voting Rights Project and the ACLU of Ohio and on behalf of CAIR-Northern Ohio and the League of Women Voters of Ohio, Campaign Legal Center sued Ohio to challenge this new law.
In March 2026 we sued Texas over an illegal voter purge reliant on faulty data from the SAVE system.
Texas is using the SAVE system without any investigation and further checks, despite the ease of, and prior history using, Department of Public Safety data to confirm whether voters flagged by SAVE were actually citizens.
This voter purge program not only affects naturalized citizens in a discriminatory manner, relying on faulty and outdated data, but also has been implemented differently across Texas’ counties, putting this law in direct violation of the NVRA.
Campaign Legal Center will continue to monitor any anti-voter actions taken by states as we get closer to the midterms. Whether pushed by legislation or a broader effort by the Trump administration to undermine public trust in our elections, we will continue our work in ensuring that every American can make their voice heard. Join us in the fight today.