Supreme Court lifts block on expanded SAVE voter-verification database
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The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to restore the Department of Homeland Security's expanded SAVE system, allowing states to use Social Security numbers to check voter citizenship, despite dissenting justices’ concerns about potential disenfranchisement.
The Supreme Court on Friday reversed a lower-court order that had halted state use of the Department of Homeland Security’s expanded Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to verify the citizenship status of registered voters. The 6-3 majority said the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed because federal law permits DHS to request and receive immigration-status information from agencies such as the Social Security Administration.
The decision enables several Republican-led states to continue comparing voter rolls with the SAVE system, which now allows searches using Social Security numbers and returns multiple records at once. Critics argue the practice risks removing eligible voters, particularly naturalized citizens, from the rolls.
"Yes, you read that right. We had to file an emergency petition in the Supreme Court just so we could use government data to help states stop noncitizens from illegally voting," DHS general counsel James Percival said in a social-media post.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by the two other liberal justices, dissented, writing that the potential harm to lawful voters outweighs any alleged benefit to the government. Advocacy groups cited instances in Texas and Missouri where a significant share of matches were later found to be erroneous.
The ruling follows a June district-court decision that described the revamped database as haphazard and unreliable, and a subsequent appellate decision that declined to stay that order. The Justice Department characterized the lower-court injunction as "indefensible" and argued that it jeopardizes the integrity of the upcoming midterm elections. The Supreme Court’s order allows the system to remain in use in Florida, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio while litigation continues elsewhere.