Trump makes fresh SCOTUS push to revive controversial voter citizenship-check system before midterms
WASHINGTON, DC: After pressuring GOP senators to clear the SAVE Act from the chamber and repeatedly asking the Supreme Court to pronounce mail-in ballots invalid, President Donald Trump made another SCOTUS push to secure upcoming polls.
Trump continues to claim widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election.
Trump asks top Court to revive record system to secure polls
President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept 8 to reinstate a controversial citizenship records system to keep a check on who is voting in polls.
Trump’s administration has been trying to use the citizenship records system to conduct broad checks of state voter rolls.
Auditing of the voter roll using the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE system have been on hold in most of the country since a lower court found that the administration violated privacy law while trying to make the SAVE program stronger for voter-roll removals.
SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) is a DHS data program/system that states can use to check citizenship information.
Trump has made the program a central tool in his government-wide effort to find proof of non-citizen voting.
New filing says lower court’s argument risks poll integrity
US Solicitor General John Sauer argued in the new filing that the “indefensible” ruling by the lower court “threatens the integrity of upcoming elections.”
The latest Supreme Court request comes as the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an emergency appeal with the US Supreme Court over the mail-in ballot.
They are asking the justices to lift the lower court's block so the administration can immediately implement new US Postal Service restrictions before the November midterm elections
Although many Republican-led states are eager to use SAVE to check potential non-citizen votes, they acknowledge that additional investigation is needed before voters are removed from the rolls.
Right group filed lawsuit over scale of data in SAVE
Voting rights groups filed the lawsuit after the Trump administration expanded the program, making it easier for states to check large numbers of people on voter rolls.
The Department of Homeland Security added more information to the system, including Social Security records. It also allowed states to upload their voter lists in large batches instead of checking people one by one.
Before these changes, states could use the system only to check the citizenship status of individual voters.
The legal challengers pointed to Texas’ experience using the expanded program last year, putting forward evidence that citizens were wrongly purged from the rolls because of the state’s SAVE review.
