The US Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to resume using an expanded federal database to check the citizenship status of registered voters, temporarily overturning a lower-court order that had blocked the system.
The court’s Friday order permits state and local election authorities to use the revamped Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which can draw on Social Security numbers and other federal records to conduct large-scale voter checks.
The administration says the system is intended to help states identify noncitizens who may be registered to vote. Opponents of the programme argue that inaccurate or outdated government records could instead result in eligible citizens being wrongly flagged.
The Supreme Court’s order came after the Justice Department challenged a ruling that had prevented officials from using the expanded database. The court’s six-member conservative majority granted the administration’s request, while its three liberal justices dissented.
At the centre of the dispute is the federal government’s expansion of SAVE. The programme, originally created to verify citizenship and immigration status for government-benefit purposes, was modified to allow bulk searches and checks involving Social Security Administration records.
The changes followed an executive order signed by President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to establish systems that would allow state and local authorities to verify the citizenship or immigration status of registered voters and people seeking registration.
Several states have already used the expanded system to compare voter-registration records with federal data. The litigation has raised questions about the reliability of those comparisons and the possibility of citizens being incorrectly identified as noncitizens.
Groups challenging the system have pointed to instances in which voters were allegedly misidentified. In court filings, they cited examples from Texas and Missouri where a significant share of database matches were said to have produced incorrect results.
A federal district judge had previously blocked the revised system, finding problems with the way the database had been assembled and with the reliability of the citizenship information it contained. The administration appealed, but the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to suspend that ruling, leading the government to approach the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s latest order does not finally resolve the underlying legal dispute. Instead, it allows the modified SAVE system to remain in operation while the broader litigation continues.
The case is being closely watched ahead of the November midterm elections, amid a wider effort by the Trump administration to increase federal involvement in the verification of voter-registration information.
