A federal appeals court has ruled to keep in place a lower court blockade on the Department of Homeland Security using its SAVE database to check voter rolls, undercutting the Trump administration’s efforts to help states boot noncitizens from their registration lists.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a 2-1 decision, said the database — officially known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — can spit back false negatives, or cases where it wrongly identifies a citizen as a noncitizen.
And expanding use of the database, which was created to figure out if an immigrant was eligible for welfare, to mass-checks of voter rolls violates the Privacy Act, the court said. The judges said it would mean sharing Social Security numbers outside of the contours of the law.
In an unsigned opinion, the two-judge majority — both of them Obama appointees — said the lower court blockade will remain in place while the case develops.
“The public interest does not favor interim restoration of a system the government has not made a strong showing it may lawfully operate,” the judges said.
Dissenting was Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, who said he would have allowed states to continue using the SAVE database for voter roll checks.
Judge Katsas said the false negatives — citizens who are flagged as noncitizens because they never updated their records after naturalization — have an easy solution. They just have to provide proof of citizenship to remain on the rolls.
He also dismissed the idea that the expanded SAVE system tramples on privacy, saying the Social Security numbers would be shared with DHS but wouldn’t be made public.
Judge Katsas also said the federal government has a significant interest in using SAVE to help cleanse voter rolls.
“The government will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay,” Judge Katsas ruled.
DHS expanded use of the SAVE system last year, linking new databases and allowing states to run large batches of names, at no cost. The Biden administration had resisted those changes.
The system is part of a broader push by the Trump administration on voting. The administration argues that noncitizens and other ineligible voters are casting ballots and skewing elections.
Indeed, the Justice Department on Friday announced it had charged four immigrants — two of them here illegally and the others with some legal status — with casting illegal votes in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
The president’s opponents say the focus on cleansing voter rolls risks booting valid voters, hindering their own right to vote.
The Washington case isn’t the only one involving the SAVE system.
Judge Katsas pointed out that another federal district court in Florida has ruled that a previous settlement between some GOP-led states and the federal government requires DHS to make SAVE available for voter checks.
Judge Katsas said it’s impossible to square that with the ruling by the district court in Washington that imposed the blockade.
The two other judges, though, said the matter wasn’t that clear.
They said the Florida ruling has been appealed to another circuit court, which is deciding how to square the two cases.
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.