🕒 Created · Updated

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Rejects Administration Request to Revive Expanded SAVE System for Voter Verification

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an emergency request from the administration to immediately revive the use of a modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to check voter rolls. The court ruled that the government had not met the stringent requirements for a stay, leaving in place a lower court ruling that blocked the system's use as a mass voter-citizenship checker. President Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to transform the SAVE system into a tool for state and local officials to verify the citizenship of people registering to vote. Before the ruling, the expanded system had been used to check the citizenship status of more than 67 million registered voters. However, the court noted that inaccuracies in Social Security data could lead to incorrect results, potentially causing election officials to demand proof of citizenship from naturalized citizens who were wrongly flagged as noncitizens. The court also noted that states have performed the duty of maintaining accurate voter rolls for decades before the administration's expansion. The administration announced that it will no longer meet its original deadline to publish state citizenship lists on a portal, providing 48-hour notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the launch instead.

Sources

Paywall and unreadable sources