WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
  • The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to use federal data for voter eligibility checks before the Nov. 3 midterms.
  • The unsigned opinion reversed a June order from DC US District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan blocking DHS from using SAVE.
  • The court permitted individualized inquiries but warned that the 2026 calendar is too advanced for mass voter roll purges.
  • SAVE searches may use names, birthdays and Social Security numbers to help verify citizenship status.

The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the Trump administration to use federal data to check whether people are eligible to vote in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

The ruling reversed a lower court order and delivered the White House a temporary victory on a major election issue.

In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the court’s six conservative justices allowed the Department of Homeland Security to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, commonly called SAVE.

The justices said the department could use SAVE “to conduct individualized inquiries,” with the emphasis appearing in the original opinion.

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The court also addressed how election officials could use the information during the current election cycle.

The majority warned that the 2026 calendar was already too far along for state and local officials to conduct mass removals from voter rolls.

The decision instead permits individual checks through the federal system.

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The dispute reached the Supreme Court after D.C. U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan blocked the Department of Homeland Security from using SAVE in a June ruling.

SAVE was created 40 years ago to prevent government benefits from going to noncitizens.

The system was revamped following President Trump’s March 2025 executive order aimed at ensuring that only Americans vote in national elections.

The Department of Homeland Security had added natural-born citizens to the register.

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The department also made it possible to conduct bulk searches using names, birthdays, and Social Security numbers instead of special identification numbers issued by the agency.

Sooknanan objected to those changes in a 75-page opinion.

She wrote that “Congress put protections in place to prevent precisely this type of centralized data bank” and challenged the administration’s handling of Americans’ private information.

The judge accused the administration of having “haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable,” according to her ruling.

Sooknanan also said the system allowed states to “actively remov[e] United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.”

Her order prevented the federal government from using SAVE for the contested voter eligibility work.

The Supreme Court majority disagreed with that approach. Its opinion focused on the federal government’s responsibility to answer state and local election officials when they seek help confirming whether voters are citizens.

The majority wrote: “[T]he Federal Government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters. [Sooknanan’s order] prevents the Federal Government from using the program it believes is best suited to the task.”

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That reasoning allowed the Trump administration to resume using the program for individualized inquiries.

At the same time, the court’s warning about the election calendar limited the prospect of broad voter roll removals during the 2026 cycle.

The ruling therefore reverses the lower court’s prohibition while drawing a distinction between individual eligibility checks and mass purges.

State and local officials may seek federal citizenship verification, but the justices said it is already too late for sweeping roll changes this cycle.

For the White House, the decision marks a temporary win in its push to use federal records for election eligibility reviews.

The administration may now check Social Security numbers, citizenship status, and other data ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms.

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