The ruling by Miami-based US District Judge David Leibowitz applies only to the case of Florida resident Chelsea Cox, who was charged in October 2025 with illegally voting in the 2020 election.
Page B1From§Eachthe noon edition — 2 October 2026
THE DOCKET
Supreme Court approves voter-purge database, judge rules its own legal foundation unconstitutional eleven days later
As it ran on the front
My neighbor's kid got evicted last month, and I ended up holding one end of a couch while his buddy backed a U-Haul up the driveway. The buddy had a system. The couch goes in last, he said, because the couch comes out first — you need somewhere to sit the minute you get there, so it rides on top, loaded dead last. Everything else, the boxes, the dresser, the thing nobody could identify, goes in first, in the order you won't need it. I stood there holding a cushion thinking: is the order you load a truck the order you'll need what's in it, or the opposite of that?
I bring this up because of the dockets, which I understand about as well as I understand a U-Haul — badly, and from the outside.…
…(cont) On August 26, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court's hold on the mail-ballot order, the one that had Homeland Security building citizen lists for the Postal Service to check before a ballot got counted. Four days after that, the full Court agreed, 7 to 2, and struck the mail-ballot piece down for good.
Eleven days after that, on September 25, the same Court let the administration keep its other project running — the SAVE database, built to verify citizenship before Election Day. Different case, different lawyers, same building.
Today, seven days after that, a federal judge in Miami named David Leibowitz ruled that the law the administration has been using to prosecute noncitizen-voting cases is unconstitutional. The case in front of him belongs to a Florida woman, Chelsea Cox, charged last October with illegally voting in 2020. The ruling covers her case. Can a law be struck down as unconstitutional in one courtroom and still be load-bearing for a database the Court approved the week before?
The Washington Examiner ran a piece the same day, same dateline, October 2, insisting the Court's database ruling "won't disenfranchise voters." I keep going back to that word, unconstitutional, because it shows up on the Miami docket and gets denied, in substance, one paragraph later on a different masthead, same morning. Does a denial written the same day as a ruling need to have read the ruling first?
And at the same time — not after, at the same time — the Times is reporting both parties are already filing the lawsuits meant to contest results from an election that hasn't happened yet. You file for the result before you've gotten it, the way the kid's friend loaded a couch he didn't need until the truck stopped moving.
So here's what I keep turning over, driving home past the U-Haul still parked across the street, needing a fan belt it is not getting this month either: two filings, one word, eleven days and then seven more between them. The Court approved the database on the 25th. The judge in Miami found the law under one of its own prosecutions unconstitutional on the 2nd.
Oh — one more thing, before you go. Of those two, the approval and the ruling, which one came first?
“They greenlit the purge database on the 25th, then a federal judge yanked a leg out from under the law it leans on seven days later — that's not a contradiction to them, that's a schedule. The Examiner calling it "won't disenfranchise voters" the same morning a judge calls the underlying statute unconstitutional isn't bad timing, it's the whole con: build the machine first, settle whether it's legal never. Both parties are already drafting the lawsuits to fight results from an election that hasn't happened — that's not confidence, that's two sides agreeing the count itself is now a bargaining chip.”
“Look, one ruling in Miami about one woman's 2020 ballot doesn't touch the SAVE database, the Supreme Court already looked at that and said go ahead — did I just say "already looked at that," like that settles anything? Fine, it settles the database question, the Cox case is a separate statute, separate judge, separate — this is a both-sides story, the Times says both parties are filing suits, so clearly nobody's hands are clean here, which is actually a point in our favor. I'm going to stop before I say the word "unconstitutional" myself.”
Earlier in this story
- Supreme Court strikes Trump's mail-ballot order 7-2, approves his voter-purge database eleven days later. By Sal · the coffee break edition, 2 October 2026
The receipts
Every time supporters of election reforms like voter ID and citizenship verification, which are intended to improve the security and integrity of our elections, win a case in the courts, opponents drag out the “mass disenfranchisement” claim. You can see that tiresome con game being played once again with the Supreme Court’s Sept.
Republicans are using the courts to hunt for noncitizen voters. Democrats worry the G.O.P. is trying make it harder for eligible voters to cast ballots — and paving the way to try to toss valid election results.
The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled the Trump administration can use a controversial new federal database that would ostensibly verify voter citizenship in November’s elections. Critics argue the administration is exaggerating the threat of non-citizen voters – an extreme rarity in US elections – to implement policies that would…
· Trump's Contested Order to Restrict Mail-In Voting Could Disenfranchise Millions: Ari Berman from the morgue, 26 Aug 2026
· 'Trump Must Keep His Hands Off Our Elections': Judge Again Blocks Attack on Mail-In Voting from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.