Amicus Brief

LDAD Challenges Unlawful Creation of National Voter “Data Bank”

June 28, 2021

Apr 15, 2026

Editorial credit: Shuterstock

Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the administration’s effort to compile a database of all persons in the United States, and to use Social Security information as the basis for each state to determine voter eligibility. The administration seeks to do this through a dramatic expansion of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (“SAVE”) system.

Originally a tool to verify the immigration and citizenship status of people applying for government benefits, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) dramatically expanded the SAVE system by turning it into a national "data bank."

By linking SAVE directly to Social Security Administration records, the government can now perform "bulk" searches on millions of Americans, including those born in the United States. This is a massive leap from the system's original purpose and now impacts over 300 million people.

The government is encouraging states to use this data to determine who is eligible to vote, notwithstanding the fact that reliance on Social Security information is not an accurate indication of citizenship and eligibility to vote. As a result, eligible legal voters are already being wrongly flagged and purged from voting rolls because of outdated government paperwork.

LDAD’s brief focuses on the history and sanctity of the Social Security Number. The brief makes clear that the radical changes the government has made to the SAVE system are unlawful and pose a significant threat both to individual privacy and the integrity of voter eligibility records.

“Our brief argues that this is precisely the type of interagency 'national data bank' the Privacy Act was written to prohibit," stated LDAD volunteer lawyer Ben Vaughan. “If the government can link and search these massive databases without oversight, no personal information is truly private.”

Attorney Vaughn coordinated work on the brief, which involved LDAD volunteer lawyers Carla McKain and Katie Zoglin; Georgetown Law students Sydney Martens and Esther Park; and Georgetown Law Professor Mitt Regan. Professor Aderson Francois of Georgetown Law Center filed the brief on behalf of LDAD.

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