The state of Florida on Monday June 11 filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security. Government Executive reports that the law suit, filed the by the state’s Secretary of State Ken Detzner, “accuses DHS of failing to provide the state with access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program database to verify the citizenship of illegal immigrants on Florida’s voter rolls. Florida has been working off of its Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Department information over the past year to purge its voter rolls of suspected illegal immigrants, but the data can be out of date or incorrect.”

On the website of Florida’s Secretary of State, Secretary Detzner is quoted as saying, "For nearly a year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has failed to meet its legal obligation to provide us the information necessary to identify and remove ineligible voters from Florida’s voter rolls. We can’t let the federal government delay our efforts to uphold the integrity of Florida elections any longer. We’ve filed a lawsuit to ensure the law is carried out and we are able to meet our obligation to keep the voter rolls accurate and current."

In a letter issued by U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez and quoted in the Government Executive report, Perez “points out that the SAVE database can only be used if Florida can provide unique identifiers, like alien registration numbers or certificate numbers found on immigration-related documents.” Perez went on, “But Florida has failed either to provide the necessary information to DHS, or to confirm that the necessary information would be available for verification purposes under the SAVE program.”

In a separate development, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida and Secretary of State Detzner on Tuesday June 12, alleging violations of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.