The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to use a modified, centralized database, which includes Social Security information, to help state officials identify non-citizens on their voter lists. The ruling, issued just 39 days before the November 3, 2026, election, paused a federal judge's order that had blocked the government from using the system due to privacy concerns and potential violations of federal law. The unsigned majority opinion stated that the lower court's order inhibited the federal government's efforts to assist state and local agencies in proper election administration.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, criticized the decision, highlighting that the Supreme Court had never before interpreted the statutory provisions in question. She also argued that the majority disregarded the harms that the modified database could cause lawful voters. The dispute originated in late March when President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to establish systems for states to verify voters' citizenship and immigration status. These agencies then modified the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to include records of U.S.-born citizens, access Social Security numbers, and allow multiple simultaneous searches.
The League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center challenged these changes, with a federal judge agreeing that the modified SAVE system violated federal privacy laws, the Social Security Act, and administrative agency laws, blocking its use. The judge had stated that the federal government "knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote," and noted that states were actively removing U.S. citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information. While the Supreme Court acknowledged that one of the challengers had standing to sue, it concluded that the challengers were not likely to prevail on the merits, citing a 1996 federal immigration law that authorized DHS to request and receive citizenship and immigration information from other agencies like the SSA. The Court also noted that the National Voter Registration Act limits broad purges of voter rolls in the 90 days before federal elections, which limits the potential impact of the decision ahead of the midterms, but individual voter citizenship checks are still permitted. Critics have raised concerns about the reliability of the data, with examples like Travis County, Texas, where at least 10% of voters identified as non-citizens were actually U.S. citizens, and only three non-citizen voters have been charged with illegal voting in Texas since the state began using the SAVE system last year. The administration, however, maintains the system is lawful and necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting, with 27 states currently utilizing the system.
