Appeals court ruled against the system last week after June finding it unlawful
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to approve a federal immigration database it says could be used to root out people improperly registered to vote, according to The Wall Street Journal. The emergency appeal, filed by Solicitor General John Sauer, asks the justices to overturn lower-court rulings that found the verification system unlawful and ordered it disabled.
The appeal stems from an executive order President Trump issued last year directing the Department of Homeland Security to share information with state officials about voter eligibility and to compare state voter rolls with federal data. Over the past 18 months, the administration built a verification system that merged a Department of Homeland Security database containing immigrant citizenship status with Social Security records and other federal files, the Journal reported.
Voting-rights groups challenged the expanded database in court, arguing it violated individuals’ privacy rights and produced inaccurate results. In June, a federal judge ruled the verification system was unlawful and ordered that it be disabled. A federal appeals court ruled against the administration last week.
In his emergency request, Sauer said the lower courts made it “harder to detect ineligible voters, undermining the integrity of federal elections and public confidence in the results of those elections.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed that large numbers of ineligible people, including noncitizens, are registered to vote across the country, according to the Journal. According to the Journal, the claims have raised concerns that Trump will question the validity of the midterm elections if Republicans lose.
State election officials, including some Republicans, have said they run secure contests and actively police their own voter rolls. They have said instances of noncitizens actually casting ballots have been isolated and have not affected the outcome of electoral contests.
New Jersey officials this summer reported that they had identified up to 6,600 noncitizens mistakenly registered to vote, up to 400 of whom may have gone on to cast ballots.
Some Republican-led states want to use the administration’s database to scrub their voter rolls and have been involved in separate litigation seeking access to the system.
The administration is separately asking the Supreme Court to allow new U.S. Postal Service restrictions on mail-in ballots. Citing election security, the administration has asked the justices to greenlight rules that would require states to supply lists of voters receiving mail-in ballots and give the Postal Service authority to reject ballots that do not comply with the new regulations.
Roughly two dozen states have challenged the Postal Service rules, arguing they could cause widespread disruptions. The Supreme Court could act on the mail-ballot case as soon as this week, according to the Journal.