The Supreme Court has permitted the Trump administration to use a controversial database for voter verification, overturning a lower court ruling that deemed it a privacy violation. The decision allows the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (Save) program, which checks voter citizenship, ahead of the November mid-term elections.
The top court's conservative majority ruled that the 1996 law permits the Department of Homeland Security to seek citizenship data from federal agencies. The program, which was expanded by the Trump administration, allows states to check individual voter citizenship, though the use of the system is voluntary. A federal judge previously ruled the system illegal, but the Supreme Court overturned that decision.
Voting rights groups have criticized the ruling, warning that it puts millions of Americans at risk of being unlawfully targeted by the administration's unreliable voter purge database. The decision allows the federal government to use the Save programme, which has been used by 27 states to check voter citizenship, but critics argue the system is prone to errors, with some states reporting that flagged voters may be U.S. citizens.
The dissenting justices, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, expressed concerns that the decision could mistakenly revoke the voting rights of eligible voters. The Save programme, created in 1986, was expanded by the Trump administration to allow bulk searches using sensitive data, but critics warn of potential inaccuracies in the system.