The U.S. Supreme Court revived an expanded voter-citizenship database on Friday, allowing states to resume bulk voter screening weeks before the midterms.

Here's the catch: federal law bars states from systematically purging voter rolls within 90 days of an election. So the ruling's immediate practical effect is limited. Think of it as the court unlocking a door that election law still mostly keeps shut, at least for now.

The justices granted a Justice Department request to stay a lower court order that had blocked the modified system, known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), while the case proceeds on appeal. The court ruled 6-3. The majority said a 1996 immigration law likely authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to receive citizenship data from the Social Security Administration, notwithstanding privacy laws cited by challengers.

Ruling But Not Without Dissent from 3 Judges

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. She argued the majority misread the statute and failed to weigh harm to lawful voters. She cited a Texas woman whose voter registration was revoked without her knowledge, and two others who had to prove citizenship to remain registered after being flagged by the modified system.

SAVE's Expansion and the Legal Fight Behind It

SAVE was created in 1986 to verify eligibility for public benefits. States have used it to check voter citizenship since 2005. Last year, the administration linked the system to Social Security records and enabled bulk searches using Social Security numbers, expanding its scope significantly.

A federal judge in Washington vacated the modified database in June, ruling it violated federal privacy law. A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to pause that ruling on Sept. 4, prompting the administration's emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

James Percival, general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, replying to a post on X, said they had to file an "emergency petition in the Supreme Court" so they could use government data to "help states stop noncitizens from illegally voting."

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