The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue using a federal database to help states identify voters whose citizenship status is in question.
The decision allows the Department of Homeland Security to continue providing states with citizenship and immigration information through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) programme.
The database has become controversial after the Trump administration expanded its use to conduct bulk searches using sensitive information, including data from Social Security records.
Voting rights groups have raised concerns about the reliability of the information, warning that eligible US citizens could be mistakenly flagged and removed from voter rolls.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that federal law allows the Department of Homeland Security to obtain citizenship and immigration information from other federal agencies and respond to requests from states.
However, the ruling does not allow states to carry out broad voter-roll purges in the weeks immediately before an election. The National Voter Registration Act restricts such removals, limiting the immediate impact of Friday’s decision ahead of the midterm elections.
States can nevertheless continue using the SAVE system to check the citizenship status of individual voters.
The three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warning that even a small number of wrongful removals could interfere with the voting rights of eligible citizens.
The case stems from a June ruling by US District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who found that the expanded use of the database violated the privacy rights of Americans. A federal appeals court subsequently allowed that ruling to remain in effect before the Supreme Court intervened.
The SAVE database was established in 1986 to help government agencies verify the immigration or citizenship status of people applying for public benefits.
The Trump administration later expanded its capabilities to allow officials to conduct broader searches for voter eligibility.
The League of Women Voters, the lead plaintiff in the case, described the Supreme Court decision as disappointing, arguing that the database could be used to target eligible voters.
The Trump administration has maintained that SAVE is a lawful tool needed to prevent non-citizens from voting. Twenty-seven states currently use the system to check voter citizenship.
Critics have cited cases in which the database allegedly produced inaccurate results. In Travis County, Texas, officials reportedly found that at least 10 per cent of nearly 100 voters flagged as non-citizens were actually US citizens.
Georgia, meanwhile, has worked with the federal government on the programme. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his office independently checks the information before taking any action against voters.
The latest ruling comes as the Trump administration pursues broader changes to the US electoral system, including efforts to tighten voter registration and verification procedures.
