US Supreme Court Revives Trump Administration’s Voter Verification Database

The administration says the system is intended to prevent noncitizens from voting, while critics warn that inaccurate data could lead to eligible citizens being wrongly removed from voter rolls. 

 

The justices granted the Justice Department’s request to suspend a lower-court order that had prevented states from using information, including Social Security numbers, from federal records to check the citizenship status of registered voters. The court’s order was issued in the case Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters. 

 

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, and the three liberal justices dissented from Friday’s order. The majority indicated that the challengers’ legal arguments might ultimately fail, noting that federal law allows the Department of Homeland Security to obtain citizenship and immigration information from agencies including the Social Security Administration. 

 

The ruling is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to increase the federal government’s involvement in election administration before the November midterms. Under the US Constitution, however, states retain the primary authority over the conduct of elections. 

 

The Department of Homeland Security expanded its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database last year. The revised system added access to Social Security Administration records, including Social Security numbers, and enabled states and local authorities to conduct bulk searches of voter records. 

 

DHS General Counsel James Percival said on social media Friday that the administration had sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court to help states use federal data to prevent noncitizens from illegally voting.

 

After the database was expanded, several Republican-led states began comparing its information with voter rolls. Some registrations were subsequently identified for removal based on the database’s results. Critics have argued that the system could wrongly identify eligible citizens as noncitizens and lead to their removal from voter lists. 

 

The challengers in the case—including voting-rights and privacy organizations—argue that the revised SAVE system has incorrectly identified citizens as noncitizens. They say some of the underlying records can be outdated or inaccurate, while the overall error rate of the system has not been publicly established. 

 

Court filings have cited examples of inaccuracies in the system. According to material submitted to the Supreme Court, a Travis County, Texas, election official said that 25% of people identified by SAVE as noncitizens had previously provided proof of citizenship. An advocacy brief also cited reports of very high error rates in Missouri.

 

The Supreme Court’s order itself noted that states had already begun using the modified SAVE system and that challengers alleged some members had been wrongly identified as noncitizens. 

 

The League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued in September 2025, arguing that the changes to SAVE violated federal privacy and other laws.

 

US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, DC, later ordered the database’s expanded use to be halted. She questioned the reliability of the citizenship information and the way the system had been developed. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to stay that ruling in a 2-1 decision on September 4, prompting the administration to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing in dissent, said the potential harm to eligible voters from being burdened or disenfranchised outweighed the government’s claimed harms.

 

The ruling allows the expanded SAVE system to be used while the underlying legal dispute continues. Separate litigation in Florida has also allowed the Trump administration to continue using the revised system in Florida, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio.