Voter rolls: Supreme Court lets Trump use SAVE database

The US Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to use a federal database to help check whether people on voter rolls are US citizens.

The unsigned ruling lifted a lower court order that had blocked use of the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE, for voter-roll checks before the November midterm elections. A majority of the nine justices joined the decision, while the court's three liberal justices dissented.

SAVE is used to identify citizenship status for benefits eligibility. The Supreme Court said the federal government "has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters."

The lower court had said in June that states were using the database to remove US citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information, and that the federal government had harmed privacy rights in a way that threatened voting rights.

Attorney General Todd Blanche called the Supreme Court ruling a "huge victory for election integrity" and said it would allow states to clear voter rolls of "illegal voters."

Election experts said the decision is unlikely to have a major effect on the November elections because most US states bar voter purges within 90 days of an election. Rick Hasen, a University of California, Los Angeles law professor, wrote that both the majority and dissent appeared to agree the case was likely to have limited impact on the midterms.