Following a Supreme Court decision on the modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, some media commentators and political activists have urged states to conduct voter roll removals — a step that would conflict with a federal prohibition on systematic voter list changes within 90 days of an election, and with findings that the database may flag individuals who are, in fact, eligible to vote.
The SAVE database — now drawing on Social Security Administration records as an additional data source — received judicial authorization to be used in checking voter registration lists for entries that may belong to non-citizens. The system underwent an overhaul enabling bulk voter-list uploads to be cross-referenced against records for identifying individuals who may not hold citizenship.
In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out that the newly shared SSA data tied to the updated SAVE database encompasses records for natural-born U.S. citizens, naturalized citizens, and noncitizens alike — a breadth she argued raises the prospect of eligible voters being incorrectly identified for removal from voter rolls. When a Texas database audit was conducted, roughly one in five of the flagged registrants turned out to hold citizenship and had their voting status restored.
Within the ruling, the court observed that the National Voter Registration Act bars states from carrying out any program whose aim is to systematically strip ineligible voters from official voter rolls in the 90-day window before an election, though a footnote in the opinion indicated the court intended to examine the full reach of that provision in Republican National Committee v. The case — docketed as Mi Familia Vota, et al., No. 25–1017 — centers on a legal question about whether the NVRA bars states from running programs that remove non-citizen voters from the rolls during the 90-day window before a federal election. Neither side in that proceeding raised the question before the court, leaving it without written argument on the matter.
Some commentators and media personalities linked to efforts questioning election outcomes have urged authorities to purge voter registration lists, citing the Supreme Court's decision as justification. On his program War Room, Steve Bannon opened a segment on the ruling by characterizing it as authorization to move immediately on voter-roll removals, with 39 days remaining before the election, and gave a platform to contributors who contended that the 90-day moratorium no longer applies.
On September 25, Jeff Clark — who previously served at the Justice Department — told Bannon that the 90-day waiting period under the NVRA had been rendered void by a provision within the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, known as IIRAIRA, which Clark described as unambiguous; however, the statutory language he pointed to addresses the exchange of citizenship and immigration status data among government agencies, rather than the removal of names from voter registration rolls.
On the same broadcast, Mitchell put forward the position that the 90-day moratorium fell outside the relevant statute's scope, given that the law confines such pauses to systematic voter-roll reviews. She went on to outline a targeted process for flagging potential noncitizens, encouraging members of the public to invoke citizen challenge provisions and bring those concerns to local election officials in time for any disputed names to be addressed before polls open. In a separate line of argument, she stated that the Department of Homeland Security ought to release the pertinent data, and pushed back against secretaries of state in certain jurisdictions who, in her assessment, had not treated the matter as one requiring action.
Von Spakovsky, in a radio appearance, laid out several proposals he said would address voter roll integrity, including federal litigation against California under the National Voter Registration Act, legislation he described as requiring states to verify citizenship status among registrants, and the placement of immigration enforcement officers at polling locations as a measure he argued would discourage non-citizens from casting ballots.
A Newsmax commentator weighed in on the ruling on air, describing it as a victory for the upcoming midterm elections and expressing curiosity about whether it would affect voter turnout patterns among groups that have historically backed Democratic candidates.
