What the Supreme Court's voter-citizenship database decision means for the midterms

Key Points:

• The Supreme Court reinstated the Trump administration's use of the Department of Homeland Security's SAVE database to review state voter rolls for potential noncitizens, reversing a lower court's June ruling.
• Although states can now mass-check voter rolls against the SAVE database, a 90-day federal voting law (NVRA) prevents removal of voters from rolls ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, limiting immediate impact.
• The SAVE database was originally designed to track noncitizens known to DHS, not specifically to police voter rolls, and has significant errors and mismatches, sometimes wrongly flagging eligible voters, including recently naturalized citizens.
• County election administrators remain responsible for final decisions on voter roll removals and tend to exercise caution in removing voters flagged by the database, providing an additional layer of review.
• Separately, the Supreme Court struck down Trump-backed congressional maps in Missouri weeks before the election, blocking a map that could have created an additional Republican district.