By a 6-3 majority, the Supreme Court stayed the temporary restraining order prohibiting the implementation of the government’s modified SAVE system to determine eligible voters. In its per curiam opinion, it hardly seems like much of a big deal.

Lest there be any doubt, section 1373(c) requires DHS to respond to inquiries from state and local agencies “seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual.” Considered alongside section 1373’s “notwithstanding” clauses, section 1373(c) appears to contemplate an information-sharing regime like the modified SAVE program. In light of these provisions, this Court is likely to reverse the District Court’s holding that the federal defendants violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the APA.

If state or local government feels like it, it can query the federal government database to ascertain whether a person is a citizen and, therefore, eligible to vote. States aren’t required to use the database, but have it available if they want it. Who better to serve as the keeper of such data on citizenship on a national basis than the federal government? What states do with the data is entirely up to the state, not the feds. The federal government is just being its good, ol’, helpful self, being there for states if needed. Nothing to see here.

Except for one problem that somehow manages to go wholly unmentioned in the majority decision: The SAVE database is so replete with errors that it will functionally disenfranchise substantial eligible voters. It was tried in Texas, where it was found to be wrong about 20% of the people it flagged. In Nevada, it flagged 16,000 people, but it turned out that none of the people flagged were ineligible. The database was supposed to be used to bulk de-register ineligible voters. Instead, it would de-register a great many citizens who were wholly eligible to vote. Oops.

Nonetheless, the Supreme Court found that depriving the government of assisting states would cause irreparable harm. Not to the eligible voters de-registered, unmentioned in the analysis, but to the federal government.

The remaining factors also warrant a grant. We have often granted certiorari where a lower court has set aside an important federal program. See, e.g., Bondi v. VanDerStok, 604 U. S. 458 (2025); Department of Education v. Career Colleges and Schools of Texas, 604 U. S. 1074 (2025). And, on the equities, the Federal Government is likely to suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. 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 law requires the federal government to assist states upon request, and without the availability of this database, which the feds believe “is best suited to the task,” the federal government would be unable to fulfill this mandate. And besides, it’s only there to aid the states who request help. Except that’s not quite how the Trump administration is making this happen.

Both DHS Secretary and plumbing company owner Markwayne Mullin and the Attorney General and Trump’s criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche have made it abundantly clear that any state or local election official who fails to use the database will be personally investigated and, perhaps, prosecuted for being complicit in allowing non-citizens to vote.

It’s voluntary, but if you don’t volunteer, then there’s a good chance you’re going to prison. This detail, too, was omitted from the majority’s analysis of how it’s just the feds trying to help any state that asks.

In dissent, Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, raised the omissions from the majority’s ruling.

The D. C. Circuit denied a stay of the District Court’s order while reviewing the pending appeal. But, without full briefing or oral argument, this Court now grants one—rendering questionable interim rulings about two statutory provisions it has never before interpreted. The Court also focuses only on the harms the Government will purportedly suffer absent a stay, disregarding the harms that the modified SAVE system has caused, and will likely continue to cause, to lawful voters. The Court thus misuses its equitable powers.

Justice Jackson also addresses the majority’s presumption that anytime the president is prevented from doing whatever he wants, the government presumptively suffers irreparable harm, ignoring the overarching question of whether the “important federal program” is unlawful.

First, the per curiam finds that the Government is irreparably harmed absent a stay because the District Court “set aside an important federal program.” Ante, at 5. But if the Government has failed to show that modified SAVE comports with the Social Security Act, then disabling the Government from using that program is not a cognizable harm. It cannot be that the Government is “injured whenever [it] is prevented from” violating the law.

On the flip side, Justice Jackson notes that de-registering citizens eligible to vote is kind of a big deal which the majority ignored.

Even more concerning is the majority’s omission of any consideration of the harms that might occur if the modified SAVE system is allowed to continue operating. See California, 609 U. S., at ___ (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 10). The District Court highlighted such harms, noting the risk that States might cancel the voter registrations of at least some recently naturalized citizens or force such persons to provide proof of citizenship before voting. 835 F. Supp. 3d, at 108–109. That court also found that those harms have already materialized in Texas, where one of Respondents’ members “had her voter registration revoked without her knowledge,” and two more “had to provide proof of citizenship to maintain registered voter status.” Id., at 113. But the per curiam’s purported balancing fails to address, much less account for, the demonstrated harms of issuing a stay. See Orr, 607 U. S., at ___ (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 3).

In my view, however, the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm that the Government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take. This imbalance, along with the Government’s improbable merits arguments, should have compelled the Court to deny the stay.

On the bright side, because the decision comes within the 90-day window before the midterm elections, states will not be able to use the database to bulk de-register voters, although they can still use it to disenfranchise individual voters for whom there are specific reasons to question their eligibility. But the decision will still be there as the 2028 election cycle rolls around afterward.