WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to resume using an expanded federal immigration database to help state and local election officials verify the citizenship status of registered voters while litigation over the system continues.
The court granted the administration's request to stay a lower-court ruling that had blocked the modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, commonly known as SAVE.
The decision does not finally resolve the legality of the expanded system.
Instead, it allows the administration to operate the modified program while the underlying case proceeds through the federal courts.
Three justices dissent
The Supreme Court issued the decision in Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters.
The court's three liberal justices dissented from the decision.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The majority concluded that the federal government had shown a sufficient likelihood of ultimately prevailing on the legal questions to justify allowing the program to resume during the appeal.
How SAVE was expanded
SAVE has existed since 1986 and historically allowed government agencies to verify the citizenship and immigration status of noncitizens applying for public benefits.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 directing the Department of Homeland Security to develop systems allowing state and local authorities to verify the citizenship status of registered voters and people seeking to register.
The order also directed the Social Security Administration to make relevant records available to DHS.
DHS launched the modified SAVE program approximately two months later.
According to the Supreme Court, the revised system added access to information maintained by the Social Security Administration, including Social Security numbers.
It also allowed state and local authorities to conduct bulk searches involving multiple individuals rather than checking records one at a time.
How voter checks work
Under the modified system described by the Supreme Court, an authorized state or local agency can submit identifying information including a person's name, date of birth or full or partial Social Security number.
The information is checked against federal records to determine whether the system can confirm the individual's citizenship.
If SAVE cannot confirm that a person is a citizen, the state or local agency is expected to contact that individual and request additional proof of citizenship before determining whether the person may register or remain registered to vote.
The database itself does not independently remove a person from a voter roll.
Election administration and decisions concerning voter registration remain primarily the responsibility of state and local officials.
Lower court had blocked system
The League of Women Voters, several of its state and local affiliates and the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued federal agencies over the expanded system.
The plaintiffs argued that the program improperly combined and disclosed sensitive federal information and could result in eligible citizens being incorrectly identified as noncitizens.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled in June that the modified SAVE system violated provisions of the Social Security Act, Privacy Act and Administrative Procedure Act.
Her ruling set aside the modified program and related federal records notices.
The Trump administration appealed.
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined on Sept. 4 to suspend the district court ruling while the appeal proceeded.
The administration then asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Supreme Court majority cites federal immigration law
The Supreme Court majority said the plaintiffs likely have legal standing to bring their case but concluded that their substantive claims are unlikely to succeed.
The court focused on a federal immigration statute, 8 U.S.C. Section 1373.
The majority said the law expressly protects the exchange of citizenship and immigration-status information between government agencies and the Department of Homeland Security.
The court also noted that federal law requires DHS to respond to inquiries from state and local governments seeking to verify an individual's citizenship or immigration status.
The majority concluded that those provisions likely authorize an information-sharing system resembling the modified SAVE program despite the privacy-law restrictions cited by the lower court.
Concerns about incorrect citizenship records
The plaintiffs have argued that inaccuracies in federal databases create a risk that eligible U.S. citizens could be incorrectly flagged.
One plaintiff identified in the Supreme Court opinion is a naturalized citizen registered to vote in Louisiana whose Social Security Administration records did not accurately reflect her current citizenship status.
The Supreme Court acknowledged that the inaccurate record could have required her to provide additional citizenship documentation under the modified program.
Reuters reported that voting-rights groups also cited examples from Texas and Missouri that they say demonstrate significant inaccuracies in some database results.
The overall error rate of the modified SAVE system has not been publicly established.
The Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department did not provide Reuters with an overall error rate when asked.
Administration says system protects election integrity
The Trump administration has argued that the expanded system gives election officials an important tool for identifying noncitizens who are ineligible to vote in federal elections.
Justice Department lawyers called the lower-court order blocking the system indefensible and argued that preventing use of SAVE threatened election integrity ahead of the November midterms.
Noncitizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections.
Research and prosecutions have documented cases of noncitizen voting, although available evidence indicates such voting has been uncommon relative to the size of the electorate.
Voting groups warn of disenfranchisement
The League of Women Voters and other challengers argue that inaccurate records could instead force eligible citizens to prove their citizenship again or lead to wrongful voter-registration cancellations.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which represents plaintiffs in the case, criticized Friday's decision and said eligible Americans could be subjected to unreliable citizenship screening.
Justice Jackson raised similar concerns in her dissent.
Jackson argued that the potential harm to lawful voters from incorrect citizenship determinations outweighed the government's claimed harm from temporarily being prevented from using the expanded system.
Midterm elections approaching
The ruling comes less than six weeks before the November midterm elections.
Several states had already used the modified SAVE system to compare federal citizenship information with their voter-registration lists before the lower court blocked the broader program.
Separate litigation had allowed the modified system to remain available in Florida, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio even while the broader district court order remained in place.
Friday's Supreme Court action now allows the federal government to resume the expanded system while the appeal continues.
What happens next
The Supreme Court's ruling is a stay rather than a final decision on the merits of the lawsuit.
The legal challenge brought by the League of Women Voters and other organizations will continue.
The administration may use the modified SAVE system in the meantime unless another applicable court order limits its use.
The case could eventually return to the Supreme Court for a full review of the program's legality.
For the immediate future, state and local election officials that choose to use SAVE will again have access to the expanded federal citizenship-verification tools as preparations continue for the 2026 midterm elections.