Wisconsin barred local clerks from using a federal database to verify voter citizenship, citing state privacy laws blocking data sharing.
Officials in a key battleground state dealt another setback to the Trump administration’s efforts to shore up election integrity.
Wisconsin election officials have barred the state’s roughly 1,800 municipal clerks from using a federal database to verify voters’ citizenship, putting the state at odds with a Trump administration initiative aimed at identifying potential noncitizens on voter rolls.
The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously approved guidance earlier this month stating that clerks cannot use the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, known as SAVE, to conduct citizenship checks.