The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to restore an expanded federal system that allows election officials to check voter rolls against citizenship and Social Security data, seeking to make the tool available ahead of November's midterm elections.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to lift a lower-court order blocking changes to the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, as The Hill reports.
The system, traditionally used to determine eligibility for certain federal benefits, was expanded after President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to give election officials greater access to citizenship information.
The changes link SAVE with Social Security records and allow bulk searches of voter information. According to Sauer, the modified system had been processing more than one million requests per day before it was blocked.
"The district court has issued an indefensible order that threatens the integrity of upcoming elections," Sauer wrote. He argued that reverting to the previous system would force federal and state officials to use an "older, more cumbersome, and less reliable" process.
The administration turned to the Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2-1 on Friday to keep the system blocked. The majority said the government had not made a strong enough showing that its use of Social Security information complied with federal privacy protections.
"The public interest does not favor interim restoration of a system the government has not made a strong showing it may lawfully operate," the appeals court majority wrote. A lower-court judge had previously concluded that the overhaul violated the Social Security Act and federal privacy law.
The dispute comes amid a broader administration push to increase federal scrutiny of voter eligibility ahead of the midterms. The Justice Department has sought voter-roll information from states, while Republican-led states have separately gone to court seeking access to federal citizenship data.
Critics argue the measures could improperly flag eligible voters and point to research indicating that noncitizen voting is rare. An August TIME opinion piece by Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, argued that the administration's broader election agenda, including proposed documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements, risks preventing eligible citizens from registering.
The administration maintains that stronger citizenship verification is needed to protect election integrity.
The emergency request was directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles applications arising from the District of Columbia and may refer the matter to the full Supreme Court. Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which represents groups challenging the system, said the case puts Americans' privacy and voting rights at risk.
