The US Supreme Court has issued an unsigned opinion granting a request from the Trump administration to utilize a federal database for the purpose of identifying potential non-citizens on voter registration rolls. This decision marks a significant development for President Donald Trump ahead of the upcoming November mid-term elections. While the court is currently dominated by conservative justices, the three liberal members of the bench dissented from the majority ruling.
The Supreme Court’s decision effectively lifts a lower court order that had previously blocked the use of the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program for this purpose. While SAVE is traditionally utilized to verify citizenship status for determining eligibility for benefits, the administration argued it should also be available for election officials. In its ruling, the Supreme Court emphasized that the federal government maintains an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials who seek to verify the citizenship status of voters. The court further noted that the lower court’s injunction had prevented the federal government from employing the program it considered best suited for this task.
In June, the lower court had ruled against the Trump administration, stating that states were partnering with the federal government to access the database and were actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information. US Attorney General Todd Blanche welcomed the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, describing it as a "huge victory for election integrity" and asserting that it would allow states to clear voter rolls of illegal voters.
Despite the administration's stance, election experts have indicated that the ruling is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the November elections. Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, noted in a blog post that both the majority and the dissenters agree the case will likely have limited influence on the midterms. Hasen explained that most US states have laws in place that ban the purging of voter rolls within 90 days of an election. He further characterized the decision as less substantively important than a recent Supreme Court ruling that blocked a Trump administration plan to restrict the use of mail-in ballots. President Trump had previously reacted to that earlier decision with frustration, labeling it "horrible" in a post on Truth Social.
