On September 25, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow the Trump administration to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to check voter citizenship, staying a June 2026 injunction. While the conservative majority argued the federal government must assist states in verifying voter eligibility, dissenting liberal justices and voting rights groups warned the error-prone database threatens to disenfranchise eligible citizens. The ruling's immediate impact is limited by federal laws restricting systematic voter purges within 90 days of an election.
Supreme Court ruling on the SAVE database
- ▪On September 25, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow the Trump administration to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to check voter citizenship, staying a lower court injunction
- ▪The U.S. Supreme Court's unsigned majority opinion on September 25, 2026, stated that a 1996 law obligates the federal government to respond to state and local election officials seeking to verify voter citizenship
Dissenting opinions from the justices
- ▪In a dissenting opinion on September 25, 2026, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the harm of disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm the government experiences when prevented from taking unauthorized action
- ▪U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the Supreme Court's September 25, 2026, decision allowing the use of the SAVE database
Impact on the 2026 midterm elections
- ▪Election law experts, including David Becker and Rick Hasen, stated that the Supreme Court's September 25, 2026, ruling would have limited immediate impact on the November 2026 midterm elections due to federal law's 90-day restriction
- ▪Federal law, including the National Voter Registration Act, prohibits states from systematically removing voters from registration lists within 90 days of an election
Overhaul of the SAVE database
- ▪The SAVE database was overhauled following a March 2025 executive order by President Donald Trump that aimed to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration
- ▪The overhauled Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system was expanded to include records of natural-born citizens, access Social Security Administration data, and allow bulk searches by state and local entities
Legal challenges to the database
- ▪The League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and five individuals sued in September 2025, arguing that consolidating sensitive records from multiple agencies into the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database violated federal privacy laws
- ▪In June 2026, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the overhauled Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, ruling that the Trump administration knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens
Reported errors in the SAVE database
- ▪In Travis County, Texas, local officials found that between 10% and 21% of 97 voters flagged by the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database as noncitizens were actually U.S. citizens
- ▪In St. Louis County, Missouri, news reports cited by voter advocacy groups in court filings indicated that at least 81% of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system's responses were erroneous
Debatable claims
- ▪Consolidating citizen records into the SAVE database violates federal privacy rights
- ▪The Trump administration exceeded its authority by expanding the SAVE database for voter verification
- ▪The benefits of using the SAVE database for voter verification outweigh the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters
- ▪The federal government should establish a centralized database to verify voter citizenship
Story comments
Loading comments…