Supreme Court Lets States Use Expanded SAVE Database to Verify Voter Citizenship

What happened

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, lifted restrictions on the federal SAVE database, granting President Donald Trump a temporary win in his campaign against noncitizen voting and allowing states to use the Department of Homeland Security program to verify voter eligibility. The unsigned majority opinion held that the federal government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials to verify a voter's citizenship, and that the lower court's order "prevents the Federal Government from using the program it believes is best suited to the task," according to NPR.

The court's three liberal justices dissented. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the majority disregarded the harms the database "has caused, and will likely continue to cause, to lawful voters."

The ruling reverses, at least for now, a June 2026 decision by U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, who blocked the modified SAVE program after finding that its aggregation and disclosure of sensitive data violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. "The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote," Sooknanan wrote. After an appeals court panel refused to stay that ruling by a 2-1 vote, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer took the case to the Supreme Court earlier this month.

SAVE is a 40-year-old system originally created to check immigration status for public-benefits eligibility. DHS overhauled it last year by linking it for the first time with Social Security Administration records and allowing bulk queries, encouraging states to upload entire voter rolls. A March 2025 Trump executive order calls for federal agencies to consult SAVE data to create state-by-state lists of adult U.S. citizens and directs the attorney general to prioritize prosecuting election officials who provide ballots to ineligible voters. The 60-day pre-election deadline for those lists has passed, but officials say the project continues, per NPR.

Why it matters

The dispute sits at the intersection of two competing claims: the administration's argument that expanded verification protects election integrity, and voting and privacy groups' argument that the program creates an unauthorized citizenship database prone to error. Sauer told the Court that since May 2025 the updated SAVE has verified more than 65 million voters across 26 states and flagged 28,635 as potential noncitizens, and that the district court order "makes it harder to detect ineligible voters, undermining the integrity of federal elections."

The challengers, the League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which first sued over the SAVE overhaul a year ago, argued that Congress has not authorized a "master database of U.S. Citizens" and that the government "has recklessly created an error-laden master citizenship database that endangers millions of Americans' privacy and voting rights."

The accuracy question is central to both sides' claims. In Texas, 18 million voters were run through SAVE and 2,724 were flagged, according to figures compiled by USA TODAY. Roughly 20 percent of flagged Texas voters were later found to be citizens and reinstated, and only 117 cases, about 4.2 percent of the flagged total, were referred for investigation of possible noncitizen voting. In Travis County, Texas, at least 10 percent and likely up to 21 percent of 97 investigated flagged voters were found to actually be Americans.

The immediate effect on the November midterms may be limited. Federal law bars states from "systematically" removing voters within 90 days of a federal election, and that window has closed with just over a month until Election Day and voting already underway. The government argued that SAVE should at minimum be usable for individual removal decisions. The decision also followed the court's Sept. 15 rejection of the administration's attempt to tighten mail-in ballot use ahead of the midterms that will decide control of Congress, making Friday's ruling the administration's second election-related request to reach the justices this month.

How it is being covered

Twelve rated sources are carrying the story, with a left/centre/right split of 33/67/0 percent and all 12 rated high or very high for factuality, according to ground.news. Ground.news flags the story as a blindspot on the right, noting "This is a Blindspot: 0% Right," meaning no right-leaning outlets in its index are covering the ruling even as centre and left-of-centre outlets lead with it.

What to watch

Watch whether states begin submitting bulk voter roll queries to SAVE now that the stay is lifted, and whether any removal actions before Election Day draw new legal challenges under the 90-day quiet period rule. The underlying district court ruling remains in place on the merits, so the case is likely to return to the courts for a full merits fight over whether the SAVE overhaul violates the Privacy Act and related statutes. Also watch the state-by-state citizen list project under the March 2025 executive order, which missed its pre-election deadline but continues, and any referrals of flagged voters for prosecution, where error rates documented in Texas are likely to feature in litigation.

By the numbers

The expanded SAVE system has scanned at least 67 million voter registrations, with the Solicitor General citing more than 65 million verified across 26 states since May 2025, and 28,635 flagged as potential noncitizens, per NPR. In Texas, 18 million voters were run through the database, 2,724 were flagged, and 117 cases, about 4.2 percent of the flagged total, were referred for investigation of possible noncitizen voting, according to USA TODAY. Election Day is just over a month away, with voting already underway.

Source snapshot