WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday upheld President Trump’s expanded use of government data to spot noncitizens who are registered to vote. The justices granted an emergency appeal from Trump’s lawyers and set aside a judge’s order that blocked use of this data on the grounds it was error-prone, particularly for naturalized citizens. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The decision will aid states that seek to scrub their voter rolls and remove those who are not citizens. Several Republican-led states including Texas and Florida supported the administration’s appeal. The use of the new database “allowed Texas to more efficiently, promptly, and economically ensure the accuracy of its voter rolls,” the state said.
It was “able to run its entire list of 18 million voters” through the expanded system of checks “in bulk and for no cost.” It’s not clear the decision will have much impact in California and other Democratic-led states. It is likely to have a limited impact in the month ahead because the law forbids states from purging their voter rolls in the 90 days before an election. The court, in an unsigned opinion, said the law supported use of the data.
If not, state or county election officials may require these suspect voters to furnish proof of their citizenship. However, states and local election boards are not required to conduct these searches. The administration also said its data reports are not final proof of citizenship.
Upholding these data searches “would not require states, candidates, parties, or voters to do anything,” Solicitor Gen. John Sauer told the court. States that wish to use that information in the course of ensuring that only eligible citizens cast ballots this November should be free to do so.” In dissent, Jackson said the court’s order creates the “risk that states might cancel the voter registrations of at least some recently naturalized citizens or force such persons to provide proof of citizenship before voting.” The new system of voter checks is based on the 40-year-old Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, that was created by Congress.
Then, the goal was to check if applicants were entitled to receive federal benefits. Last year, Trump issued an executive order directing Homeland Security to expand the reach of SAVE to provide states “access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered to vote.” It is a federal crime for noncitizens to register and vote. Trump has long maintained that noncitizens are voting, but he has had little evidence to support that claim.
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