President Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to restore his administration's access to a federal database used to verify voters' immigration status, just weeks before November's midterm elections. Solicitor General John Sauer petitioned the court after lower courts blocked access to the system, arguing the ruling was "indefensible" and threatened election security. Critics, however, say the move is part of a broader effort by Trump to assert federal control over elections, which are traditionally run by individual states, and risks disenfranchising eligible voters.

The database, known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, was blocked in June by US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who found it had wrongly flagged American citizens as noncitizens, breaching their privacy and voting rights. Advocacy groups had sued over the system, calling it error-prone and outdated, and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the block in a 2-1 ruling this month, prompting the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. Democracy Forward's Skye Perryman said the administration was seeking to revive an "unlawful system" after repeated defeats in lower courts, while Chief Justice John Roberts has given both sides one week to file responses.