Supreme Court restores Trump's mass voter verification system
- On Friday, September 25, 2026, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned emergency order allowing states to use the Department of Homeland Security's revamped Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system to verify voter citizenship ahead of the November midterm elections.
- President Donald Trump directed the expansion in March 2025, ordering the Department of Homeland Security to link the 40-year-old SAVE program with Social Security Administration records to enable bulk citizenship checks identifying potential noncitizen voters on state rolls.
- Critics warn the tool remains error-prone; Travis County, Texas, investigations found at least 10% and likely up to 21% of voters flagged by SAVE were actually U.S. citizens, raising disenfranchisement concerns.
- Federal law bars states from systematically purging voter rolls within 90 days of an election, limiting the ruling's immediate impact; state participation in SAVE remains entirely voluntary for election officials.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, warning the majority's assessment was "back of the napkin" and risked disenfranchising lawful voters as litigation continues.
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Here’s how Trump is building a national citizenship database to check voters
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s order on Friday allowing the Trump administration to merge sensitive personal data stored across federal agencies gives the government a wide-ranging tool in its effort to identify noncitizens and ineligible voters.
The U.S. Supreme Court has for the time being allowed the controversial use of a database to check voters.
The US Supreme Court has granted a reprieve to the Trump administration, allowing states to use the SAVE system for citizenship verification on voter rolls. The court also stayed a lower court ruling that had invalidated the use of the modified SAVE system.
Supreme Court Sets Aside Block Granting States Ability to Verify Voter Status in Midterm Election
In 1986, the federal government built a computer database called SAVE, Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. The purpose was simple – when a noncitizen applies for public benefits the state govt can check whether the applicant was legally in the country. The SAVE system worked. Nobody talked about it for 39 years. In March 2025, […]
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