Supreme Court Allows Citizenship Database for Voter Roll Verification: What to Know

The Supreme Court recently handed President Donald Trump a win in his voter integrity efforts, which have been saddled with legal setbacks for more than a year.

The justices’ decision on Sept. 25 came just before the midterm elections and offered states a useful yet controversial tool for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of registered voters.

Trump signed an executive order instructing, in part, federal agencies to create a centralized database for the mass citizenship verification of state voter rolls. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did that by revamping the four-decade-old Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to include Social Security Administration (SSA) data.

But a federal judge in Washington blocked that portion of the order, saying it violated the privacy rights, among other federal laws, of Americans.

Trump has often stated illegal aliens vote in U.S. elections, and further security measures were needed to prevent this.

Opponents to the modified SAVE database said it goes too far, claiming the system disenfranchises voters.

Here’s what to know about Trump’s election directive, what the Supreme Court allowed, and arguments from both sides.

Trump’s Order

Last year, Trump signed a presidential action titled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.

It directed DHS to expand state and local authorities’ access to federal resources for verifying citizenship or the immigration status of registered voters and those seeking to register.

Thus, the modified SAVE database was born, allowing federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local agencies to conduct bulk citizenship verification checks of voter rolls.

SAVE had been in use since 1986 to track the citizenship status of foreign nationals in the United States who apply for public benefits and only allowed for individual queries, but Trump’s order permitted states to use it for election integrity efforts.

States could effectively cross-check their voter roll information with federal data, including SSA records such as names, addresses, and immigration status, to ensure there are no illegal aliens registered.

“Several Federal laws … prohibit foreign nationals from registering to vote,” Trump’s order read. “Yet States fail adequately to vet voters’ citizenship, and, in recent years, the Department of Justice has failed to prioritize and devote sufficient resources for enforcement of these provisions. Even worse, the prior administration actively prevented States from removing aliens from their voter lists.”

Supreme Court Weighs In

The justices issued an emergency order on Sept. 25, agreeing 6–3 to allow the federal government to use the revamped SAVE system.

According to the ruling, a district judge erred when granting an injunction that blocked use of the database. The justices reasoned with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which authorized DHS to request and receive citizenship information from other federal agencies.

“The District Court’s order thus inhibits the Federal Government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections,” the majority wrote in their seven-page per curiam opinion.

The Supreme Court only paused the order, pending the outcome of an appeal of District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s June 22 ruling that prevented the government from using the database.

Sooknanan barred the Trump administration from deploying the SAVE system on the grounds it violated federal privacy law, the Social Security Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs how federal agencies propose and adopt regulations.

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” she wrote in her 75-page decision.

Her ruling was upheld on Sept. 4 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2–1 ruling.

Shortly after, the Trump administration requested the high court to take up the issue.

Limited Midterm Impact

In the justices’ opinion, they referenced a section of the National Voter Registration Act requiring a 90-day “quiet period” ahead of elections.

The statute bars states from mass removing “names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters” in the weeks leading up to primary or general elections for federal office to avoid chaos and confusion.

“To be sure, that moratorium limits the potential impact of [this decision],” the opinion read.

However, the majority said states should still be allowed to use the modified SAVE system for individual inquiries.

Concerns About Voter Disenfranchisement

Along with the three dissenting Supreme Court justices—Ketanji Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—Sooknanan said U.S. citizens were being removed from voter rolls.

The plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters and Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a Sept. 15 brief to the Supreme Court that Congress never authorized the federal government to “create a master database of U.S. citizens.”

“Multiple statutes restrict federal agencies’ ability to use, repurpose, and disclose Americans’ sensitive personal information,” the brief read. “Disregarding these laws, the government has recklessly created an error-laden master citizenship database that endangers millions of Americans’ privacy and voting rights.”

Some members of the groups were wrongfully classified as noncitizens by SAVE, resulting in the termination of their voter registration, the plaintiffs argued.

“The harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm that the Government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take,” Jackson said in her dissent.

A coalition of about three dozen Democratic lawmakers filed a brief to the high court in support of the group’s lawsuit, describing the SAVE system as inaccurate and unreliable.

“The consequences of haphazardly mashing together a longstanding system for determining an immigrant’s legal status (SAVE) and SSA’s database with personal information on millions of Americans were predictable,” the brief stated, referring to “undisputed evidence” of harm against voters who support Democratic nominees in the upcoming midterms.

States’ use of SAVE is optional.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) pushed back on concerns of disenfranchising voters in a brief filed to the Supreme Court, noting that 27 states had used the modified system for voter checks, which amounted to 59.7 million verification requests between January 2025 and April 2026.

Out of the nearly 60 million requests, the DOJ said, the plaintiffs claimed only four individuals suffered “actual voter injuries.”

Proponents Weigh In

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told The Epoch Times that Sooknanan’s prior block was incorrect because “it was very clear that federal immigration law overrode any confidentiality provisions in the Social Security and Privacy Acts.”

Spakovsky called assertions that the new SAVE database would disenfranchise voters “absurd.”

“Only a handful of individuals have ‘claimed’ they were mistakenly listed as not being citizens,” he said. “All they have to do is provide evidence of their citizenship and the problem is resolved.”

Spakovsky said the system was used by states for 40 years to verify citizenship for public benefits, but issues with it only arose when it was modified under Trump.

“No one complained about it until it was improved with Social Security data and began to be used by election officials,” Spakovsky said. “That says a lot about the partisan motivations of those opposing its use.”

Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio filed a brief to the Supreme Court in support of the SAVE system, writing that when a court interferes in states’ maintenance of accurate voter rolls, election integrity and confidence suffers.

“As part of preventing voter fraud, including non-citizen voting, the [states] have an obligation to maintain accurate and current voter registration records,” the states wrote, referencing the border crisis under the Biden administration, when millions of illegal aliens were allowed into the country.

“After all, [a state] cannot track and maintain immigration and citizenship information on its own.”