The US Supreme Court has allowed the use of a "noncitizen voter screening tool" pushed by the Trump administration ahead of the upcoming midterm elections in November.

According to the Associated Press and CNN, the Supreme Court overturned lower court rulings on the 25th (local time), enabling states to utilize the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to verify voter rolls.

SAVE is a database originally used to check the citizenship and immigration status of applicants to prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving US welfare benefits or administrative services.

Last year, the Trump administration expanded and overhauled the system, adding Social Security Administration (SSA) data and introducing a bulk search function to query multiple individuals' information at once.

It then required state election authorities to use the system to check the citizenship status of individuals registered on voter rolls.

The Trump administration maintains that a voter verification tool utilizing federal databases is essential to prevent illegal voting by noncitizens and protect the fairness of elections.

President Donald Trump has previously raised allegations of electoral fraud, claiming that the results of the 2020 presidential election were distorted by illegal voting by noncitizens.

However, civic groups filed a lawsuit, arguing that the federal government improperly integrated and shared the personal information of millions of people in the process.

In June, US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled that the Trump administration's expanded SAVE program violated the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

The court also pointed out that erroneous information posed a risk of purging legitimate voters from voter rolls.

Consequently, it immediately invalidated the operation of the revamped SAVE system and totally banned its use.

The federal appeals court also upheld the lower court's block on the use of SAVE.

In response, the Trump administration appealed again to the Supreme Court, and the conservative-majority court sided with the administration, temporarily staying the lower courts' block on the use of SAVE.

This effectively paves the way for state election authorities to utilize the SAVE system until the midterm elections.

The Supreme Court noted, "The lower courts' orders prevent the federal government from using a program it has determined is best suited for that task."

Critics worry that the system could prevent legitimate voters from exercising their right to vote.

Anthony Nells, a voter in Texas, told the AP that the system "infringes on people's constitutional right to vote" and added, "It seems like another unfair means to influence the upcoming and future elections."

Authorities in Texas, where Nells resides, analyzed the names of all 18 million registered voters using the SAVE system last year and announced that 2,724 potential noncitizens were found.

In addition, they notified each county to inform voters that they would be purged from the rolls unless they proved their citizenship within 30 days.

However, as local election authorities began in-depth investigations, this number began to dwindle, and earlier this month, Texas authorities also announced that hundreds of noncitizens flagged as suspects last year were actually US citizens and eligible to vote.

Experts point out that delays in updating information in the SAVE system mean that quite a few individuals who recently acquired citizenship are still classified as noncitizens.

Steve Richard, a former Republican election official in Arizona, also wrote on social media, "The SAVE program has proven to be a deeply flawed tool on multiple occasions," adding, "Election officials should use it only as a starting point, not as a definitive indicator of citizenship."

Still, because the use of the SAVE program depends on the voluntary choice of each state, the Supreme Court's decision will have a limited impact on the midterm elections, the AP reported.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who has refused to use the SAVE program, said the decision "does not force state governments to change how they run elections" and will have no effect on the state.

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