Supreme Court temporarily restores use of SAVE voter-eligibility database

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order that nullified a district judge’s injunction against the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, permitting states to keep using the database to verify voter eligibility before the November elections. The ruling follows a failed attempt by a federal appeals court to halt the district court’s June decision, which had found the program’s expansion violated privacy rights and risked wrongful voter removals.

Although participation in SAVE remains voluntary and existing statutes restrict large-scale roll-purges within 90 days of an election, the Court’s move gives the Trump administration a temporary win in its broader effort to curb alleged non-citizen voting. The program, originally created to prevent non-citizens from receiving government benefits, has scanned at least 67 million registrations since its expansion, and errors have already been reported, such as in Travis County where up to 21 percent of flagged voters were later confirmed as citizens. The Department of Homeland Security says it continues to use Social Security Administration data in limited cases and maintains that its investigations are conducted “diligently and professionally.”