Supreme Court lets Trump administration use revamped federal voter eligibility database for now

Supreme Court lets Trump administration.

Key points

• News Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press, Ali Swenson, Associated Press July 29, 2026.
• Healthcare Mark Sherman, Associated Press, Ali Swenson, Associated Press May 19, 2026.
• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
• Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas contributed to this report.
• Independent candidate Carl Boyanton is accusing 4th District Congressman Mike Ezell of receiving illegal contributions.

Supreme Court lets Trump administration employ revamped federal voter eligibility database for now. By: Ali Swenson, Associated Press – September 25, 2026.

For context, a general view of the U.S. Supreme Court, Friday, June 23, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib).

Meanwhile, the emergency ruling lifts a lower court's restrictions for now on the program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. Although its apply remains voluntary, the lately revamped Department of Homeland Security tool has been a central pillar of President Donald Trump's crackdown on noncitizen voting.

NEW YORK (AP) – The Supreme Court on Friday lifted restrictions on a controversial federal voter database before November's elections, granting President Donald Trump a temporary win in his aggressive campaign against noncitizen voting. The court's three liberal-leaning justices publicly dissented from the decision.

Meanwhile, the emergency order allows states, for now, to employ the Department of Homeland Security program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, in their efforts to verify the eligibility of voters on their rolls.

States' employ of the SAVE program is voluntary. The immediate impact on the upcoming midterms is probable limited as existing law blocks most states from systematically purging voters from their rolls within 90 days of an election, noted David Becker, an election law expert who leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

He remarked since the program is voluntary and DHS itself has admitted the data is not perfect, "states may find this to be a useful tool used along with other tools to keep their lists up-to-date."

In practice, the court's order puts on hold a federal judge's June ruling that had deemed the Republican administration's lately revamped version of SAVE illegal. U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan had blocked the employ of the tool, saying it violated Americans' privacy rights and could result in voters being wrongly removed from the rolls. Notably, a federal appeals court let her order stand.

But the Supreme Court majority discovered that a 1996 law explicitly allows DHS to secure information regarding citizenship and immigration from other federal agencies. The federal administration additionally has "an obligation to respond" to states seeking to verify citizenship.

"The order below prevents the Federal Government from using the program it believes is best suited to the task, " the majority wrote in the unsigned order.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. The database has long been seen to fall under federal privacy laws, she wrote, and there are real risks that legitimate voter registrations could be mistakenly revoked.

"The harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm that the Government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take, " Jackson wrote.

In practice, the plaintiffs and counsel team in the case called the ruling "profoundly disappointing" and remarked it puts "millions of Americans at risk of being unlawfully targeted by the administration's unreliable voter purge database" before the midterms.

"However, this case is not over, " their statement read. "The D.C. District court ruled that the expanded SAVE program violated multiple laws. We will be doing everything in our power to protect Americans' voting and privacy rights by ensuring that the district court decision stands."

In practice, the White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

In practice, the SAVE program was created under an immigration law mandating that DHS support federal, state and local agencies prevent administration benefits from going to noncitizens. The Trump administration last year moved to significantly expand its search abilities. Since then, at least 67 million registrations have been scanned through the program, but critics worry it could end up purging valid voters from the rolls.

Some registrants have already been wrongly flagged. In Travis County, Texas, for example, authorities stated they investigated 97 voters flagged by SAVE as apparent noncitizens and discovered that at least 10% of them – and probable up to 21% – were U.S. Citizens. While the state of Texas submitted its own brief defending the database, the county pressed the Supreme Court to reject the administration's appeal.

Even though the employ of the SAVE program has been blocked for months, the administration stated in court filings that DHS authorities have continued using Social Security Administration data "in certain cases to verify information and help determine whether illegal voting may have occurred."

DHS in August introduced its own investigation to find noncitizen voters on state rolls, according to a federal whistleblower statement that stated the effort is rushed, filled with errors and potentially violates state laws. DHS has defended that investigation as being conducted "diligently and professionally."

Meanwhile, the effort to create a national voter list is among numerous steps Trump has taken during his second term to try to overhaul the way elections are run. Most of those steps have been blocked by various courts, in part since the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election rules, but provides no such power to the president. In mid-September, the Supreme Court rejected a bid from Trump to restrict mail ballot procedures before the midterms.

Research demonstrates that noncitizen voting. It is already illegal and punishable as a potential felony that could lead to deportation, is exceptionally rare. But Trump has remained fixated on the idea that massive numbers of noncitizens are voting in U.S. Races.

Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas contributed to this report. Regarding the Author(s). Ali Swenson, Associated Press. News Cass Rutledge September 24, 2026.

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Taken together, the developments around supreme Court lets Trump administration use revamped federal voter eligibility database for point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.