A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Justice Department's plan to collect unredacted state voter rolls and compare them with a federal immigration database violated federal law. The decision came from U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who found the administration's effort to verify citizenship status through this cross-referencing method exceeded legal authority. The ruling represents a setback for former President Donald Trump, who had championed the initiative as part of his administration's push to investigate non-citizen voting ahead of the November midterm elections, when control of Congress hung in the balance. The Justice Department had argued the program was necessary to identify potential voting irregularities, but the court determined the approach lacked proper statutory basis and raised privacy concerns over the handling of voter information. The judgment specifically addressed the department's methodology rather than broader election security debates, leaving existing state procedures for voter roll maintenance unchanged.