Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned Friday that the United States Supreme Court had misused its power and favored the Trump administration over voters, as it lifted a bar on using Social Security information within a federal citizenship verification system ahead of the midterms. The court ruled in favor of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a ruling without the majority justices named. The move will allow use of the updated Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system when checking voter eligibility, after a lower court blocked its use over concerns Social Security Administration (SSA) citizenship data was often outdated.
While the ruling comes too late for registered voters to be scratched from state voter rolls, with the midterms less than 90 days away, Jackson warned the decision had come without a full hearing, calling the majority's assessment "back of the napkin." In her dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, Jackson warned the court had misused its powers. "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," Jackson wrote. "This imbalance, along with the Government’s improbable merits arguments, should have compelled the Court to deny the stay." This is a breaking news story.
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