SUPREME COURT LETS TRUMP USE VOTER DATABASE FOR CITIZENSHIP CHECKS

The US Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration can use an expanded federal database to check the citizenship status of registered voters ahead of November's midterm elections. The justices granted a Justice Department request to block a lower court order that had prevented state officials from using Social Security numbers and other data to run checks against federal records. The Department of Homeland Security redesigned the database, known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, last year to allow bulk searches using Social Security numbers. President Donald Trump and administration officials say the system is intended to combat voting by non-citizens.

Several Republican-led states have already compared their voter lists against the database, and some voters flagged as potential non-citizens have had their registrations cancelled, according to the reports. Critics argue that non-citizen voting is extremely rare in US elections and say the administration is overstating the threat to justify measures that could disenfranchise eligible voters, particularly those likely to support Democrats. In June, US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, DC, blocked use of the revamped database, writing that the system had been assembled haphazardly and contained unreliable citizenship data. She said the federal government had "knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote."

The ruling allows states to resume using the database while the underlying legal challenge continues. The US Constitution gives individual states the primary authority to run and administer elections, and the data-sharing arrangement forms part of a wider set of actions by the federal government to increase its role in the voting process before the midterms. Neither report indicated a date for further proceedings in the case.