Tennessee is preparing to use a federal database to review its voter rolls, as early voting is already underway and the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for states to resume using an expanded version of the system. The database, SAVE, has also produced potential noncitizen matches that proved inaccurate in other states.
The tool, known as SAVE, stands for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, and it pulls from Department of Homeland Security, Social Security and other records to check registered voters' citizenship and immigration status, according to NewsChannel 5 Nashville. The system was originally created by Congress four decades ago to determine eligibility for federal benefits, not to screen voter rolls, as the Los Angeles Times reports. The Department of Homeland Security overhauled SAVE by linking it for the first time with Social Security Administration records and allowing bulk queries, according to NPR.
Trump Order Pushed States Toward the Tool
The federal push to use SAVE followed a 2025 executive order by President Trump. The order announced a tool to identify noncitizens who had voted and prevent repeat voting, and directed the Department of Homeland Security to notify states about noncitizens on voter rolls and order the removal of ineligible voters, according to NewsChannel 5. Trump has claimed too many noncitizens vote in U.S. elections. In October 2025, he sent Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett a letter thanking him for using SAVE and being among the first officials to protect election integrity, the station reported.
Hargett’s office announced that it had referred 42 people identified as potential non-U.S. citizens who voted to the FBI for review, according to a statement cited by NewsChannel 5. The office has not told the station how many of the 42 were actually noncitizens, how many were removed from voter rolls or whether anyone was prosecuted.
No Charges Found in Tennessee Courts
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville confirmed that no one had been charged with illegal voting in the preceding year, and court records showed no such charges in East or West Tennessee, NewsChannel 5 reported. The Davidson County Election Commission said no noncitizens had been removed from Nashville’s voter rolls and that the secretary of state’s office had not contacted or notified it in the preceding year about ineligible noncitizens voting.
A federal judge blocked the expanded searches in June 2026, citing concerns about the system’s reliability. The Supreme Court later overturned that ruling, allowing states to resume screening voter rolls with the tool. The Department of Homeland Security said the court ruled 6-3 in its favor, according to a statement from DHS. The ruling does not mean a SAVE result alone can determine a voter’s eligibility: the Supreme Court record says such a result is neither necessary nor sufficient for a state to demand proof of citizenship or revoke a registration, NewsChannel 5 reported. Officials have also stressed that use of the tool will not affect who can vote in the current election.
What a SAVE match can establish
USCIS says SAVE provides verification information but does not decide whether someone is eligible to register, remain on a voter roll or vote. Its guidance also says a no-match based on Social Security Administration data is not a final response and cannot be used to deny registration or remove someone from a roll, according to USCIS. In June 2024, Tennessee officials sent 14,375 voters letters seeking proof of citizenship based on state Department of Safety and Homeland Security data, then said recipients would not be removed for failing to respond, WPLN News reported. In a distinct 2013 case, the Supreme Court held that the National Voter Registration Act preempted Arizona’s documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement for people using the federal registration form; the ruling concerned registration documents, not database-based voter-roll screening, according to the Supreme Court decision.
A Legal Guardrail Tied to Timing
A federal law bars states from systematically removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election. As a result, Tennessee cannot use SAVE to remove anyone from the rolls for this cycle’s midterm elections, NewsChannel 5 reported. The timing restriction is also described in NPR’s coverage of the Supreme Court decision. Since May 2025, the updated system has checked more than 65 million voters in 26 states and flagged 28,635 as potential noncitizens, NPR reported.
Errors have piled up elsewhere. In Texas, SAVE mistakenly identified more than 2,000 U.S. citizens as noncitizens, according to NewsChannel 5's reporting. Texas said its expanded data checks identified 2,724 potential noncitizers among its 18 million registered voters, requiring county officials to run additional citizenship checks, the Los Angeles Times reports. In Travis County alone, 11 of 97 voters flagged as potential noncitizens had already provided proof of citizenship to the Texas Department of Public Safety, according to Votebeat. Texas official Christina Adkins said the discrepancies affected only a small fraction of the total list and could stem from outdated information or clerical errors, the outlet reported. County election officials in Texas have mistakenly flagged voters as noncitizens at rates as high as 14 percent when using SAVE checks for voter registration, according to the Tennessee Lookout.
Texas initially sent counties the SAVE-generated list without checking the flagged names against Department of Public Safety records. Officials there have said the number of U.S. citizens whose registrations were actually canceled after being flagged remains unknown, according to The Fulcrum. In Nevada, officials determined that voters cited in an administration claim of more than 15,000 noncitizens on the rolls were citizens and lawful voters, the Los Angeles Times reported. The paper also reported that a separate software error in New Jersey led to more than 6,000 people being wrongly registered to vote when they registered their cars. Organizations that challenged SAVE’s overhaul said the federal government has not released the system’s error rate, NPR reported.
Critics Question the Case for Expanded Screening
Sekou Franklin, a Fisk University political science professor involved with voting and civil rights groups in Tennessee, said the claims about noncitizen voting made by SAVE’s proponents create doubt and fear around elections. He argued that Trump uses the issue as a pretext to shrink the voter pool and intimidate voters, according to NewsChannel 5.
Franklin described widespread illegal voting by noncitizens as extremely rare and said more eligible U.S.-born voters are caught committing voter fraud than noncitizens, NewsChannel 5 reported.
