The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Trump administration can check Americans’ Social Security numbers, citizenship status and other data to help state and local officials oversee the November midterm elections, reversing a lower court order that warned the feds were infringing on privacy rights.
The ruling allows the Department of Homeland Security to re-access the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, a 40-year-old database which was revamped in response to President Trump’s March 2025 executive order meant to ensure only Americans vote in national elections.
DHS had added natural-born citizens to the register and allowed bulk searches of the database using names, birthdays and Social Security numbers rather than special identification numbers issued by the agency.
DC US District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ordered DHS to stop using the database in June, writing that “Congress put protections in place to prevent precisely this type of centralized data bank” and accusing the administration of having “haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable,” allowing states to “actively remov[e] United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.”
In an unsigned per curiam, the court’s six conservative justices noted that while states are not allowed to purge voters from the rolls fewer than 90 days before the midterms, DHS can use “the modified SAVE program to conduct individualized inquiries … [Judge Sooknanan’s] order thus inhibits the Federal Government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections.”
