In a 6–3 decision Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to use a federal database to verify whether voters are eligible to participate in elections, according to The Center Square.
What the program does
The Center Square reports that a March 2025 executive order by President Donald Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to let state and local authorities verify the citizenship of registered voters and people seeking to register. DHS, the outlet says, revamped its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to monitor eligibility for local, state, and federal elections. According to the report, the program uses Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other identifying information to determine whether an individual is eligible to vote or must be removed from voter rolls.
The challenge
The League of Women Voters argued the program violated confidentiality and privacy protections by allowing DHS to access Social Security numbers of individuals on the lists, The Center Square reported. The majority of justices disagreed, per the outlet.
What the majority said
Quoting from the opinion, The Center Square reports the majority wrote: “Congress, however, separately and expressly authorized DHS to request and receive information relating to citizenship and immigration status from other agencies, including [the Social Security Administration].” The outlet also quotes the justices as writing: “The Federal Government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters.”
Dissent’s warning
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. According to The Center Square, Jackson wrote that laws allowing the Social Security Administration to share information place strict limits on how it can be used across the federal government due to privacy concerns. “There is no reason to believe that Congress meant to repeal laws that would otherwise prohibit federal agencies from disclosing citizenship information,” she wrote. Jackson also warned against the program being used to revoke citizens’ voter registration, adding: “In my view, however, the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm that the Government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take,” per the outlet.
What’s clear—and what isn’t
The Center Square characterizes the ruling as temporary. The report does not identify the case name or further procedural details.
