The Supreme Court permitted the use of a Trump-era database for citizenship checks, allowing states to verify voter rolls for noncitizens. The database, which was originally designed to track noncitizens, has been used by the Trump administration to expand its use for election purposes. The decision comes just two months before the midterm elections.
The court overturned a lower court ruling that blocked the 2025 modifications of the SAVE database, allowing states to use it to mass-check people for citizenship status on voter rolls. The database, which is tied into several other databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, is not perfect and has been known to flag U.S. citizens incorrectly.
The decision allows states to use the database to check voter rolls for noncitizens, but the system is not foolproof and has been known to incorrectly flag U.S. citizens. The database is not the only check for voter registration, and county election administrators are still responsible for ensuring voters are not wrongly removed from the rolls.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned in her dissent that states might cancel the voter registrations of at least some recently naturalized citizens, highlighting the potential for errors in the system.