Supreme Court Allows Expanded Citizenship Database Use Ahead of Midterms

The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to use an expanded federal database to help state and local officials check voter eligibility ahead of the midterm elections, lifting a lower-court order that had blocked the effort.

The 6-3 decision permits the Department of Homeland Security to use and expand the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as SAVE, while litigation continues. The system, originally used to determine whether noncitizens qualified for government benefits, now incorporates immigration and Social Security records for citizenship screening. The ruling does not resolve the underlying dispute over whether the administration may lawfully use the system to review voter rolls.

The court’s unsigned majority opinion said the lower-court order impeded federal efforts to assist state and local agencies in administering the elections. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing that the risk of burdening or disenfranchising lawful voters outweighed any harm to the government from being temporarily prevented from using the system.

Election-security specialists and voting-rights advocates say SAVE can rely on outdated records and may incorrectly identify naturalized citizens as noncitizens. A federal district judge who blocked the program in June said the administration had combined personal and citizenship information it knew could be unreliable. The New York Times reported that the ruling’s practical effect on voter screening during the midterms could be limited.