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

The Supreme Court is allowing states to resume using a controversial federal tool to check voter eligibility before the November elections. 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. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in its push to use a controversial database to review state voter rolls for potential noncitizens.

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.The emergency order allows states, for now, to use 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. But because existing law blocks most states from systematically purging voters from their rolls within 90 days of an election, the immediate impact on the upcoming midterms is likely limited.States' use of the SAVE program is voluntary.The court’s order puts on hold a federal judge’s June ruling that had deemed the Republican administration’s recently revamped version of SAVE illegal. Sooknanan had blocked the use of the tool, saying it violated Americans’ privacy rights and could result in voters being wrongly removed from the rolls.A federal appeals court declined to pause Sooknanan's ruling, prompting the administration's appeal to the Supreme Court.The SAVE program was created under an immigration law mandating that DHS help federal, state and local agencies prevent government 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, officials said they investigated 97 voters flagged by SAVE as apparent noncitizens and found that at least 10% of them — and likely up to 21% — were U.S.

The county urged the Supreme Court to reject the administration’s appeal, while the state of Texas submitted its own brief defending the database.Even though the use of the SAVE program has been blocked for months, the administration said in court filings that DHS officials 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 launched its own investigation to find nonciti… The emergency order allows states, for now, to use 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’ use of the SAVE program is voluntary.

The court’s order puts on hold a federal judge’s June ruling that had deemed the Republican administration’s recently revamped version of SAVE illegal. A federal appeals court declined to pause Sooknanan’s ruling, prompting the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court. The SAVE program was created under an immigration law mandating that DHS help federal, state and local agencies prevent government benefits from going to noncitizens.

Some registrants have already been wrongly flagged. Even though the use of the SAVE program has been blocked for months, the administration said in court filings that DHS officials 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 launched its own investigation to find noncitizen voters on state rolls, according to a federal whistleblower statemen… WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court lets Trump administration use revamped federal voter eligibility database for now.