Republican Push for Pre-Election Voter Roll Purges Sparks Legal and Practical Disputes

The Justice Department has requested every state's voter-registration file and is using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to flag alleged non-citizens. States including Virginia, Arizona, Ohio and Idaho have launched or revived removal programs within weeks of the 2026 election, arguing that National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day “quiet period” does not apply to purges of ineligible registrations.

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The NVRA’s quiet-period rule, upheld in a 2014 appellate decision barring Florida from using SAVE within 90 days of an election, has been tested in Virginia and Alabama. A 2024 Supreme Court emergency order allowed a Virginia case to proceed, and the Republican National Committee now seeks a Supreme Court review of an Arizona lawsuit that raises the same question.

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DHS reports 21,000 potential non-citizens among 60 million SAVE matches (0.035%). About 3 % of matches are labeled “inconclusive.” Idaho’s 2025 review initially flagged 760 voters; after manual checks only roughly 36 were referred for investigation.

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The DOJ maintains its review targets only ineligible registrations and therefore falls outside the NVRA ban. RNC spokesperson Zach Parkinson called criticism “absurd,” arguing that election integrity should not be compromised by a single voter’s paperwork. State officials in Virginia, Ohio and Idaho cite same-day registration or provisional ballots as safeguards. Campaign Legal Center director Brent Ferguson warns the purge could be illegal.

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Courts differ on whether the quiet period applies to non-citizen purges, and states vary in how they act on SAVE lists, creating uneven voter experiences. Studies have shown non-citizen voting to be rare, and there is no public data confirming how many non-citizens have voted, leaving the scope of the problem uncertain.

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The Arizona case may reach the Supreme Court before the 2026 election, prompting emergency orders on pre-election purges. Congress continues debating a national citizenship-verification bill, and several states have enacted statutes mandating regular SAVE checks, keeping the issue on the 2026 election agenda.

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• “It sets up a situation where the federal government itself is the actor trying to purge voters from the rolls in the days before the election, which is clearly illegal,” — Brent Ferguson, Campaign Legal Center

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• “The argument that states – and especially election officials – shouldn’t do their jobs or maintain accurate voter rolls because of a technicality is absurd,” — Zach Parkinson, RNC spokesperson

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• “When you’re doing that within that 90-day period, that risk is just higher that those voters won’t have adequate time or notice to be able to provide the documents that they’ll need ahead of the election,” — Wren Orey, Bipartisan Policy Center

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• “There is a reason why you do these investigations away from the election,” — Charles Stewart, MIT professor

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