Supreme Court lets Trump administration use SAVE database for now

Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday sided with the Trump administration in its push to use a controversial database to review state voter rolls for potential noncitizens, pausing for now a lower court order that found that expanded system violated federal privacy laws.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices granted a request for emergency relief from the Justice Department to stay a June ruling from a judge in Washington, D.C. The judge had blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s overhauled database — called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system — which the administration allows states and localities to use to verify citizenship and immigration status of registered voters.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan found that the Trump administration “knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote” through the overhauled SAVE system. 

The Supreme Court said in its unsigned decision that claims from voting rights groups about the legality of the modified database “likely lack merit,” and said it is likely to reverse the district court’s finding that the Trump administration violated federal law with the revamped system.

Under immigration law, “the Federal Government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters,” the court said in its unsigned decision. “The order below prevents the Federal Government from using the program it believes is best suited to the task.”

The high court said that the district court’s decision blocking use of the expanded database “inhibits the Federal Government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections.” 

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

The system is part of President Trump’s government-wide push to find evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens in federal elections, which has largely been debunked and shown to be very rare. 

Voting rights groups challenging the overhauled database have warned that the modified database provides inaccurate citizenship data to states. As a result, some of their members have had their voter registrations wrongfully canceled, they said.