Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
The Supreme Court on Sept. 25 said the Trump administration can use an updated immigration database to verify the citizenship of voters.
A majority of justices agreed to stay pending the outcome of an appeal of a June order from a federal judge that barred the use of a revamped database called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan had found that federal officials were violating the privacy rights of American citizens by disclosing the citizenship status and Social Security numbers, among other data, in the restructured database. She vacated the 2025 update, which connected Social Security information to the system.
A federal appeals court later upheld the decision.
Trump administration officials then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing in a Sept. 8 brief that the order "threatens the integrity of upcoming elections by vacating the federal government's authority to internally use Social Security data when fulfilling its duty to respond to requests by states to verify the citizenship of individuals for voting and other purposes."
Six justices sided with the administration. In a per curiam opinion, they said that claims from the organizations that sued over the updated database "likely lack merit," including the allegation that federal officials are violating federal laws, because Congress authorized the Department of Homeland Security to request and receive citizenship information and immigration status from other agencies, including the Social Security Administration, in a 1996 statute called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
The majority also said that keeping in place the prohibition "inhibits the Federal Government's efforts to assist state and local agencies."
States regularly use the system. Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden recently said the state in the fall of 2025 ran the names of its 18 million registered voters through the database and identified 2,724 people who may be noncitizens.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissent that was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
They said that connecting the database to the Social Security Administration's data did not fit under the "strict limits" imposed by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and that the law did not override other statutes such as the Privacy Act that organizations say the administration violated.
"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," Jackson wrote.
"This imbalance, along with the Government's improbable merits arguments, should have compelled the Court to deny the stay."
The White House and a lawyer representing the organizations did not immediately return requests for comment.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 14:50Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The nation’s cybersecurity agency released its election infrastructure security plan on Thursday, ahead of the November midterms set for Nov. 3.
Voters cast their ballots in the primary for midterm elections at Sanbornton Town Hall in Sanbornton, N.H., on Sept. 8, 2026. CJ Gunther/Getty ImagesThe 13-page document outlines potential threats to voting systems and lists no-cost services that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) offers state and local officials.
“In July of this year, Secretary Mullin tasked CISA with developing the Election Infrastructure Security Plan, which had been developed to help partners defend against cyber and physical threats to election infrastructure,” it reads.
“Election security is not a partisan issue. Election security is national security.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had initially said the plan would be published by mid-August.
CISA, created in 2018 under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has warned states about foreign threats.
The new plan warns of software flaws, voter registration database hacks, insider threats, and physical risks like bomb threats that hit some polling places in 2024.
“Many longstanding election practices such as handling ballots in bipartisan teams of two, allowing observers to be present during ballot counting, and maintaining chain-of-custody procedures—were specifically designed to reduce the likelihood and impact of insider threats,” the plan reads.
It says longstanding practices can handle most of those problems.
“Use paper ballots that can be easily reviewed to ensure transparency, auditability, and resilience against software failures or manipulation,” the report reads.
The goal, the document states, is “to ensure the American people can trust voting systems and know that physical safety measures will be in place when they go to their assigned polling locations to cast their votes.”
It also says DHS has “consistently supported CISA’s delivery of cybersecurity and physical security services to election officials.”
The plan names no specific 2026 threats from Russia, Iran, or China.
China-Made Voting PartsHowever, Mullin did say in a letter released on Aug. 27 that parts of many voting machines used in the United States are made in China.
“Voting machines with components manufactured by foreign adversaries introduce significant security risks,” Mullin said. “These vulnerabilities mean that malicious actors could potentially compromise election infrastructure at any stage of the supply chain, even before the machines are assembled or deployed. If a component is tampered with during manufacturing, it could serve as a point-of-entry for hackers, allowing for the possibility of synchronized attacks across multiple machines and jurisdictions.”
In July, the heads of four U.S. intelligence and national security agencies backed key aspects of President Donald Trump’s claim that China engaged in election interference by targeting American voter registration data.
A fact sheet released at the time by the White House Government Transparency Task Force states that China and its proxies bought, stole, or hacked voter data belonging to as many as 220 million Americans, including some information that was not publicly available.
The fact sheet notes that, for a foreign country’s actions to amount to “election interference,” they do not have to change the actual results.
“That definition includes a foreign power’s targeting of voter registration infrastructure or data,” the task force states, citing declassified documents produced by the U.S. intelligence community.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/25/2026 - 14:20