Washington DC - President Donald Trump's administration has asked the Supreme Court to restore access for states to a federal citizenship database ahead of the November midterm elections.
According to Politico, Solicitor General D. John Sauer on Tuesday asked the court to lift a lower-court order that blocks states from using Social Security numbers to search a Department of Homeland Security database known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE).
The effort comes after voting rights and privacy rights groups filed a lawsuit in June alleging SAVE was error-prone and has been removing citizens from states' voter rolls.
The judge overseeing the case ultimately agreed, arguing SAVE "trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens."
Last week, an appeals court voted to uphold the judge's ruling, prompting the Trump administration to take the case to the nation's highest court.
In the emergency appeal on Tuesday, Sauer argued the rulings make it "harder to detect ineligible voters, undermining the integrity of federal elections and public confidence in the results of those elections."
"By making SAVE more difficult to use, the district court's order impairs the proper administration of federal elections," he wrote.
President Trump and his allies have been aggressively pushing to gain control of voting laws and regulations ahead of the midterms, as they claim without evidence that Democrats will use undocumented individuals to sway the vote in their favor.
Critics have argued that Trump is desperate to keep Republicans in power, and is aware that his historically low approval ratings may be hindering their chances.