Courts allow Ohio citizenship proof rule and expanded federal voter checks

An appeals court has reinstated an Ohio law requiring people registering to vote through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. The decision allows the requirement to take effect ahead of the November midterm elections.

In a separate case Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to use an expanded federal database to help states check the citizenship of people on voter rolls. The emergency order pauses a lower-court restriction while litigation continues and does not resolve the underlying legal dispute.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE, was created to verify the citizenship or immigration status of applicants for public benefits. The administration expanded its search capabilities in 2025 to permit bulk searches using Social Security data. States may choose whether to use the system; the BBC reported that 27 states currently do so.

A federal district judge ruled in June that the expanded program violated Americans’ privacy rights, and an appeals court left that ruling in place before the Supreme Court intervened. The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices dissented. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the risk of burdening or disenfranchising lawful voters outweighed the harm to the government from blocking an action it may lack authority to take.

Voting-rights groups say outdated records can cause citizens to be incorrectly identified as noncitizens. Federal law generally limits systematic voter-roll removals within 90 days of an election, restricting the order’s immediate effect.