Supreme Court grants Trump request to use federal database to verify voter rolls

The US Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to use a federal database to check voter rolls for potential non-citizens. The database, known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), is used to verify a person's citizenship and immigration status.

The court's conservative majority granted the Justice Department's request to block a judge's order that had stopped state officials from using Social Security numbers and other information to conduct checks of the citizenship status of registered voters against federal records. The court's liberal justices dissented from the decision, with one expressing concern that it could mistakenly revoke the voting rights of eligible voters.

The database was redesigned by the Department of Homeland Security to verify a person's citizenship and immigration status. According to the Jerusalem Post, the court's decision was based on the fact that federal law authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to request and receive information relating to citizenship and immigration status from other agencies.

The BBC World reported that a federal judge had previously ruled that the system was illegal and violated the privacy rights of Americans, but the Supreme Court's decision limits the potential impact ahead of the midterms.

Brief written by urgent.news from Punch Nigeria, Punch, Jerusalem Post, BBC World — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.