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Supreme Court permits states to use SAVE database for citizenship checks

79 points · 105 comments · speckx

  1. legitster · · focus · HN ↗
    My human summarization of the decision:

    - SAVE was a database established in 1986 to determine if immigrants were eligible for federal benefits

    - Starting in 2005, some states used it to check their voter registrations

    - By executive order, the administration merged it with the SSN database to make bulk searches easier

    - Organizations sued, and a lower court said the administration had to hold off on rolling out the changes while the lawsuit was pending. The Supreme Court overruled the stay, saying the lawsuit had not proved enough merit to stop the policy while the lawsuits proceed.

    - It is still up to states whether they use SAVE or not. If someone shows up in the SAVE database, the state may ask them to provide proof of citizenship.

    The concern here from the dissent is that states are going to purge their voter registrations while awaiting the ruling. But realistically, the states interested in doing this don't have enough time before midterms to do this - as they would have to then process all of the proof-of-citizenship documentation or open themselves up to mass lawsuits.

    Update: Per NPR, the SAVE database covers 65 million voters in 26 states, of which 28,635 have been flagged as &quot;potential noncitizens&quot;. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.opb.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;25&#x2F;the-supreme-court-revives-the-controversial-save-data-system&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.opb.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;25&#x2F;the-supreme-court-rev...

    In Texas, using this dataset, they were only able to bring forward 117 cases of fraudulent voting.

    1. ok_dad · · focus · HN ↗
      Yea but those mass lawsuits won&#x27;t happen or matter until after midterms at this point, so even if they did illegal stuff in the end the votes will have been suppressed successfully. In a war, if you do a war crime, the dead are still dead even if the person who committed the war crime is accountable later. In politics, if they do a criminal act like this, they win an election and never have to account for their actions, because their side won and won&#x27;t call them to account.
      1. physicallyIllfr · · focus · HN ↗
        Yeah its part corruption and the weaponized taboo of second guessing election results.

        I&#x27;m convinced that even if there were large scale concerns about the legitimacy elections in the USA, they would quitely be puy to rest because God forbid we ever reckon with the fact yhat the USA might not be a perfect democracy, cant taint the image.

        Anyone looking to tamper with elections now knows they can just equivalate anyone who challenges them with Jan 6ers types.

        Tbf, democracy in this country is fundamentally broken when you have 4 companies that control the media and have a ton of control over how people see the world.

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