Voting rights groups warned that the system could incorrectly label voters as non-citizens, leading to disenfranchisement.
Published September 25, 2026
The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared President Donald Trump’s administration to use a controversial voter verification system just weeks before the November midterm elections.
A court emergency order Friday allows the Department of Homeland Security to use the Systematic Alien Eligibility Verification Program (SAVE) in its efforts to verify the eligibility of voters listed on state voter rolls.
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Voter groups argue that using the system, which was revamped under the Trump administration in 2025, risks misidentifying individuals as non-voters and could unfairly remove them from voter rolls.
Opponents of the government’s use of the database charge that the citizenship information may be outdated. They noted that election officials in Travis County, Texas, found that up to 25 percent of “noncitizens” identified by the system in their jurisdiction were actually U.S. citizens.
U.S. states oversee election administration under the Constitution and are not required to use the SAVE system, although several Republican-led state governments have voluntarily chosen to use the database.
Still, it was not immediately clear whether Friday’s decision would have a meaningful impact on the Nov. 3 midterm elections. In the midterm elections, voters decide which political party controls the U.S. House and Senate.
Under current law, most states cannot systematically remove voters from their rolls within 90 days after an election. The emergency order does not give the final say on the matter, but only authorizes the government to use the system until the court issues a final ruling.
The three liberal justices on the 6-3 conservative panel issued a dissenting opinion, saying the majority ignored “the harm that the revised SAVE system has caused and will continue to cause to lawful voters.”
The watchdog group Citizens for Ethics said the decision “puts millions of Americans at risk of becoming illegal targets of the administration’s unreliable voter purge system in the weeks before the midterm elections.”
Mr. Trump is focusing on election management in the run-up to the midterm elections, and his final two years in office could have a major impact on his authority.
He has long claimed, without evidence, that U.S. elections were marred by widespread fraud, and has repeatedly falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was “stolen.”
Evidence suggests that fraud of any kind, including instances of non-referendum voting in the United States, is deceptively rare in this country.
In September, the Supreme Court rejected President Trump’s proposal to limit mail-in voting procedures before the midterm elections.
