DES MOINES, Iowa — Four Republican-led states agreed to settle lawsuits against the federal government over access to voters’ citizenship data, ending a dispute that began with the Biden administration in advance of the 2024 presidential election.

Officials in Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio entered the settlement with the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem roughly a year after the states individually sued the agency under President Joe Biden. They had alleged the previous administration was withholding information about citizenship status that they needed to determine whether thousands of registered voters were actually eligible to cast a ballot.

Each of the states could soon run searches for thousands of voters using names, birthdays and Social Security numbers through the federal government’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program. It has been significantly upgraded under the Trump administration. In turn, the settlement reached Friday says the states may share driver’s license records with the Department of Homeland Security “to assist in improving and modernizing” its database.

The information sharing is likely to be a focal point of the 2026 midterm elections. Voting rights groups have already sued the administration over the expanded program, known as SAVE, arguing that the recent updates could result in eligible voters being unlawfully purged from voter lists. Separately, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has asked at least half the states for their complete voter rolls, a request that Democratic elections officials have questioned out of concern that the data would be provided to DHS.

Voting by noncitizens is illegal in federal elections and can lead to felony charges and deportation. State reviews show it is rare for noncitizen s to register to vote and even rarer that they actually cast a ballot.

Still, before the 2024 election, Trump pushed claims without evidence that noncitizens might vote in large enough numbers to sway the outcome. Many Republican candidates and lawmakers nationally emphasize that even one instance of a noncitizen voting illegally is too many.