The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday gave a win to President Donald Trump in a dispute over election integrity work.
It lifted a block from a lower court on a voter verification system that looks at citizenship records and Social Security records.
The decision, 6-3, lets the administration go forward with a modification of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, which was proposed a year ago “to improve the speed and reliability of verifying a person’s citizenship status.”
Leftists have claimed improving election integrity violates privacy laws.
A report at the Washington Examiner explained the court’s conclusion was that the claims from the plaintiffs, who demanded the agenda be blocked and abandoned, “likely lack merit.”
“The plaintiff organizations claim that the federal defendants violated the Social Security Act, Privacy Act, and APA. In 1996, Congress, however, separately and expressly authorized DHS to request and receive information relating to citizenship and immigration status from other agencies, including SSA, in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act,” the ruling noted.
Further, the government likely will sustain “irreparable harm” if the program block remained.
“Under section 1373(c), the Federal Government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters. The order below prevents the Federal Government from using the program it believes is best suited to the task,” the majority said.
Ketanji Jackson, the justice who during her confirmation hearing was unable to define “woman,” dissented, claiming the ruling ignores the “harms that the modified SAVE system has caused, and will likely continue to cause, to lawful voters.”
She wrote “disenfranchising” lawful voters is preferable to “the nonexistent harm that the Government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take.”
A trial court judge had ruled in favor of those opposing the election integrity move.
The Supreme Court’s ruling allows the SAVE database changes to take effect until either the denial of a petition to hear the case for full arguments before the high court or the eventual ruling by the justices if the case is taken up for arguments by the Supreme Court.
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[ H/T WorldNetDaily ]
