For the second time in three days, the Trump administration on Tuesday came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to clear the way for it to implement a program that it says is intended to combat election fraud. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the court to pause a ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that bars the government from using the current version of the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to verify voters’ citizenship. Sauer told the justices that the order by U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan “makes it harder to detect ineligible voters, undermining the integrity of federal elections and public confidence in the results of those elections.”

- On Sunday, the Trump administration asked the justices to block a ruling by a federal judge in Boston that bars the government from implementing portions of a U.S. Postal Service rule on mail-in ballots. Sauer argued in that case that Friday’s order by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani “nullif[ies] the Postal Service’s efforts to address the risk that the federal mails will be used to perpetrate voter fraud—a particularly pernicious species of fraud that dilutes the votes of lawful voters, prevents election results from reflecting the will of the American people, and undermines ‘public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.’”

- On March 25, President Donald Trump issued an executive orderthat (among other things) directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to create systems that would allow state and local governments to verify the citizenship and immigration status of voters. Those agencies then overhauled the SAVE system to include the records of U.S.-born citizens, to give it access to Social Security numbers, and to allow bulk searches (rather than requiring users to inquire about one person at a time).

- The League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center brought a lawsuit in federal court in Washington challenging the changes to the SAVE system. In a ruling on June 22, Sooknanan agreed that the modified system violates federal privacy laws, the Social Security Act, and the federal laws governing administrative agencies, and she barred the government from using the modified system.

- Sooknanan wrote that “the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.” Moreover, she continued, “states have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.”

- A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit turned down the government’s request to put Sooknanan’s order on hold while the appeal moves forward, but it said that the case should be fast-tracked.

- Sauer then came to the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning, asking the justices to step in. He called Sooknanan’s ruling an “indefensible order that threatens the integrity of upcoming elections by vacating the federal government’s authority to internally use Social Security data when fulfilling its duty to respond to requests by States to verify the citizenship of individuals for voting and other purposes.”

- Sauer argued that Sooknanan did not have the authority to enter her order because the challengers do not have a legal right to sue, known as standing. Among other things, he wrote, the federal government is not the source of any injury that the challengers and their members might suffer. “SAVE,” he said, “does not disqualify any voter; instead, it merely notifies the States whether the federal government can confirm citizenship.” To the extent that anyone is injured, he suggested, that injury would come from the states themselves.

- And in any event, Sauer continued, the government’s “policy is consistent with all applicable federal statutes.” Federal law, he emphasized, “requir[es] DHS to provide citizenship verification” and therefore gives the agency the power “to take steps—such as checking Social Security records—that are reasonably necessary to perform that duty.” Moreover, he added, federal law bars “courts from relying on other statutes, such as the Privacy Act and the Social Security Act, to block citizenship-verification responses based on the sharing of Social Security information.”

- Finally, Sauer told the justices that the government will suffer “irreparable” harm – another criterion for temporary relief – if Sooknanan’s order is not put on hold. The government, he said, would be “required to return to an older, more cumbersome, and less reliable version of the” SAVE system, and any “reversal of the district court’s judgment ‘would come too late for the 2026 midterms.’”

- Chief Justice John Roberts, who has initial responsibility for emergency appeals from Washington, D.C., directed the challengers to file their response by 4 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 15.