The Trump administration appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court Sept. 8 seeking clearance to implement a database it wants to use to purge voter rolls leading into the midterm elections.
The move came just four days after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling barring the Department of Homeland Security from using the database containing the Social Security numbers and other private information of American citizens.
U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer pressed the justices to pause the district court ruling that bars the Department of Homeland Security from utilizing the database, SCOTUSblog reported. The order “makes it harder to detect ineligible voters, undermining the integrity of federal elections and public confidence in the results of those elections,” Sauer said.
The tactic of going straight to the high court has worked for the administration before, most recently on Aug. 24 when justices cleared the way for DHS to formulate files on registered voters and lists of state and local officials to be investigated for issuing ballots to noncitizens.
The tactic of going straight to the high court has worked for the administration before.
The White House made a separate appeal to the Supreme Court Aug. 6 seeking to overturn a different court order blocking the U.S. Postal Service from compiling lists of voters to be sent mail-in ballots. In that case, Sauer argued the federal postal system would be used in the commission of voter fraud unless the justices suspend the order.
The Sept. 4 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stems from League of Women Voters v. DHS, a lawsuit filed last year to stop the government from adding Americans’ personal information to a databank originally designed to track benefits administered to immigrants.
The massive databank was formed by adding sensitive citizen data from the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies to the existing Systematic Alien Verification Entitlements database. Overseen by DHS, the project was undertaken to comply with President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”
Traditionally, elections have been administered by states, not by the federal government. Trump, however, has sought to take control of as much of the voting process as possible while claiming there is massive voter fraud that has not been documented anywhere.
The database is needed to eradicate voter fraud, his order claims: “Maintaining accurate voter registration lists is a fundamental requirement in protecting voters from having their ballots voided or diluted by fraudulent votes.”
There is no evidence of such fraud.
The president has made no secret of his intention to undermine the November elections. In addition to gaining Supreme Court clearance to limit mail-in balloting, he and his allies have consistently cast doubt on election integrity and attempted to pressure Congress to pass voter suppression legislation.
Judge Sparkle Sooknanan
In the June 22 lower court ruling now before the Supreme Court, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., determined the database to be illegal for including the personal information of natural-born Americans, including Social Security data, and for making the system searchable by government officials.
“This case implicates two fundamental rights that protect Americans from government overreach: The right to privacy and the right to vote,” Sooknanan wrote. “All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
In its 2-1 decision, the appellate court cited instances of how the modified SAVE system has been abused in pro-Trump states already using it, including “the adverse consequences to citizens from using inaccurate SSA (Social Security Administration) citizenship information in modified SAVE, including the risk — already borne out in Texas — that citizens may be required to prove citizenship to remain registered and, in some cases, may have their registrations cancelled.”
According to the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, the voter information state and local officials receive from the database is unreliable yet sometimes used nevertheless. “States like Texas that rely solely on SAVE, with no further investigation to ensure the data is accurate, end up purging Americans from the rolls, oftentimes newly naturalized citizens, even though they have the freedom to vote just like any other American.”
Plaintiffs in the litigation that sparked the rulings include several League of Women Voters state chapters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, and five individuals. They are represented by Democracy Forward, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and the Fair Elections Center.
Skye Perryman
“The courts have once again rejected the Trump-Vance administration’s attempt to weaponize Americans’ personal information against their fundamental freedom to vote,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward. “The rule of law requires federal agencies to follow the statutes Congress enacted, not invent new ways to evade them.”
Marcia Johnson, chief of activation and justice at the League of Women Voters, emphasized that the information in the SAVE database is private and often unreliable. “This administration has repeatedly tried to sidestep the law in pursuit of policies that threaten voters, and another court has now ruled to protect privacy and our democracy.”
In an immigration-related case, the federal appeals court in the District of Columbia issued a ruling Sept. 8 preventing the Internal Revenue Service from providing private personal data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“The Trump-Vance administration’s dangerous data sharing policies have resulted in the violation of the privacy rights of millions of Americans and we are pleased the court has again acted to stop this unlawful behavior,” Perryman said. “The privacy laws enacted in the post-Watergate era exist to prevent abuses of power just like this. The administration has already admitted to being careless and irresponsible with our sensitive, personal information, and now yet another court has held the administration in check.”
The ruling came in Center for Taxpayer Rights et al. v Internal Revenue Service et al, a lawsuit filed last year by a coalition of plaintiffs including Main Street Alliance, Communications Workers of America, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the Center for Taxpayer Rights. Democracy Forward represents the plaintiffs in the litigation.
“Today’s order is a resounding victory for the protection of all taxpayers’ right to the confidentiality of their tax information in the hands of the IRS. It makes clear that the Treasury Department and the IRS cannot act in violation of the law just because they want to,” said Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights.