Two federal courts struck down separate Trump administration voter citizenship verification efforts within the same week this June, and the wins for plaintiffs came with an asterisk neither side has fully reckoned with.

Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, sitting on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, vacated the administration’s overhaul of the SAVE database, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, finding that repurposing it from benefits verification to voter roll citizenship checking violated the Social Security Act’s disclosure prohibitions, the Privacy Act of 1974, and the Administrative Procedure Act.