Supreme Court lifts block on expanded citizenship database used for voter roll checks
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The high court voted 6-3 to allow the federal government to use an enlarged SAVE database for state inquiries about voter citizenship, while noting limits on bulk purges near elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday voted 6-3 along ideological lines to lift an injunction that had barred the Trump administration from using an expanded version of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. The decision permits federal officials to provide states with citizenship data from the database, which now includes Social Security numbers and allows bulk searches.
The court said the National Voter Registration Act restricts large-scale voter-roll removals in the weeks before an election, limiting the immediate impact of the ruling. States may still request individualized checks on specific voters.
The SAVE system, created by Congress in 1986 to verify immigration status for benefit programs, was broadened after a 2025 executive order directing agencies to better ensure that only citizens vote. Critics have warned that the data may be unreliable and could mistakenly flag lawful voters, including newly naturalized citizens.
In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the government had not demonstrated a sufficient need to override the lower-court order, emphasizing that even a small number of disenfranchised voters outweighs any alleged governmental harm.
The legal challenge, brought by the League of Women Voters and others, claimed the expansion violated the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act. A district court and the D.C. Circuit had previously blocked the plan. Solicitor General D. John Sauer contended that the injunction jeopardized election integrity by preventing the government from responding to state verification requests.
Since Texas began running its full voter-registration list through SAVE, only three individuals have been charged with voting illegally as noncitizens, according to reporting.