Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to Use Expanded Voter Eligibility Database

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to use an expanded federal database to help identify potential noncitizens on state voter rolls ahead of the midterm elections.

In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority lifted a lower-court order that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from using and expanding the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as SAVE. The system, originally used to determine whether noncitizens were eligible for government benefits, now incorporates federal immigration and Social Security records for voter-eligibility checks.

The unsigned majority opinion said the lower-court order impeded federal efforts to assist state and local agencies in administering the elections. The decision permits the system’s use while litigation continues and does not finally resolve whether the government may legally use SAVE to scrutinize voter rolls.

A federal judge had blocked the expanded system in June, finding that the administration had combined personal information with citizenship data it knew could be unreliable. Critics say outdated records can incorrectly identify naturalized citizens as noncitizens, potentially leading officials to challenge or cancel eligible voters’ registrations.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing that the risk of burdening or disenfranchising lawful voters outweighed any harm to the government from temporarily preventing an action she said it likely lacked authority to take.