Supreme Court lets Trump administration use revamped federal voter eligibility database for now

The Supreme Court on Friday lifted restrictions on a Department of Homeland Security database used to check voter eligibility, giving President Donald Trump a temporary win in his push against noncitizen voting before November's elections. The unsigned order lets states resume voluntary use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, program while litigation continues, putting on hold a June ruling by U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan that found the administration's expanded version of the tool illegal and a threat to voters' privacy and accurate rolls. A federal appeals court had left that ruling in place before the Supreme Court stepped in, according to PBS NewsHour.

Three liberal justices dissented publicly. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, wrote that the database has long been covered by federal privacy law and warned that legitimate registrations risk being wrongly revoked, arguing that harming lawful voters outweighs any harm to a government that "likely lacks the authority" to run the program. The majority held that a 1996 law lets DHS share citizenship data with other agencies and that the government has "an obligation to respond" to states seeking verification.

SAVE was created to help agencies confirm benefit eligibility, and the administration expanded its search powers last year, scanning more than 67 million voter registrations. Plaintiffs called the ruling "profoundly disappointing" and said the fight to preserve the district court's decision would continue.

Summarized by PolitiKool from PBS NewsHour’s reporting. Read the full story at PBS NewsHour →