Aware that he is at a disadvantage due to unfulfilled promises, Donald Trump has just added to his already long list of electoral ploys by pressuring the U.S. Supreme Court—which he already controls—to reactivate a controversial federal data system for verifying voter citizenship, with less than six weeks remaining before the midterm elections.

The decision marks a new victory for the president and overturns a lower court ruling that had blocked the use of the program known as SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements).

In an emergency ruling, the Court sided with allowing states to use the database created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to verify voter eligibility. Critics argue that the system is flawed and has confused the immigration status of U.S. citizens, potentially stripping them of their right to vote.

The Republican leader imposed the program as part of his campaign to uncover alleged voter roll fraud—an effort he has expanded ahead of the November-3 elections. Trump is at a low point in popularity, and polls predict Republicans will lose control of both legislative chambers.

SAVE was initially created to verify individuals' immigration status to determine their eligibility for federal programs. In March, Trump issued an executive order mandating the implementation of new systems allowing state and local authorities to verify the citizenship status of registered voters and those applying to vote. Two months later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) modified the SAVE system to incorporate Social Security data and facilitate mass searches rather than individual case checks.

A majority of the Supreme Court justices voted in favor of the Administration's request, reasoning that "the federal government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify voters' citizenship."

The three liberal justices dissented, led by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. "In my view, however, the harm caused by imposing burdens on even a few legitimate voters outweighs the nonexistent harm the government suffers when prevented from taking a measure for which it likely lacks authority," wrote Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Following the SAVE system modification, several groups—including the League of Women Voters—filed a lawsuit alleging that Social Security data could be incomplete or unreliable and that errors might lead to eligible citizens being incorrectly identified as non-citizens. They further argued that the dissemination of this data violated individuals' privacy.

Federal Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the system's implementation in June, concluding that it violated federal laws regarding privacy, Social Security records, and the operations of administrative agencies. In her ruling, she stated that the federal government had "deliberately trampled on the privacy rights of U.S. citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote."

The judge also noted that some states had already utilized the database and were removing U.S. citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information. In Travis County, Texas, for example, authorities reported investigating 97 voters flagged by SAVE as suspected non-citizens and discovered that at least 10% of them—and possibly up to 21%—were U.S. citizens.

The Trump administration turned to the Supreme Court after an appeals court refused to stay the lower court's ruling. U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued that, as of May 2025, the updated version of SAVE had verified more than 65 million voters across 26 states and flagged 28,625 as potential non-citizens.

Investigations show that voting by non-citizens—a practice that is already illegal and punishable as a potential felony that could lead to deportation—is extremely rare. Nevertheless, Trump has remained obsessed with the idea that a massive number of non-citizens vote in United States elections. According to the Republican, his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election was due to voter fraud, even though this has been proven false.

Trump had harshly criticized Supreme Court justices for blocking the overhaul of the mail-in voting system—one of his maneuvers to gain an advantage in the November election. The Republican sought to implement a system requiring states to submit lists of voters eligible for mail-in ballots and to use special envelopes for ballot submission, despite there being insufficient time to carry this out before the November legislative elections.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff