Trump Appeals to Supreme Court to Use Controversial Voter-Screening System

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to urgently authorize a controversial system that examines state voter rolls and identifies people it classifies as non-U.S. citizens. The appeal seeks to revive an expanded version of SAVE, a program originally created to verify people applying for certain public benefits.

The administration changed SAVE by broadening the data sources used by the system, including Social Security information. It also allowed state election officials to submit large batches of voter-registration records instead of requiring individual checks. The changes form part of the administration’s campaign to demonstrate that widespread election fraud exists in the United States.

Subsequent investigations found that many people the system began labeling as non-U.S. citizens were actually Americans. In June, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that the revised use of SAVE was illegal. The judge found that the program used certain data without proper authorization, violated rules governing Social Security information and created a significant risk of wrongly identifying citizens as noncitizens, potentially endangering their right to vote.

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indefensible

In its filing, the Justice Department called the ruling “indefensible” and said it “threatens the integrity of the next elections.” The administration has also asked the Supreme Court to lift a block on new presidential directives that would allow the Postal Service to restrict mail-in voting, another method Trump has described as a source of fraudulent votes.

The latest appeal adds to the White House campaign to restrict voting ahead of the midterm elections, when Trump is seeking to retain control of both chambers of Congress. The article places those efforts against a backdrop of low popularity linked to the war in Iran.

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threatens the integrity of the next elections