The League of Women Voters was founded by suffragists in 1920, the year they successfully secured the right of women to vote. A century later, with efforts afoot to restrict voting during the upcoming federal midterm elections, the League has lobbied Congress to defeat the proposed SAVE Act and has initiated and joined lawsuits to fight voter suppression.
Your financial support of the League has helped these efforts bear fruit. So far, the courts have agreed with the League that the proposed voter restriction measures cannot be implemented because they are unlawful and unconstitutional. And the League is still fighting to prevent passage of the SAVE ACT.
Here’s a synopsis of these efforts and the most prominent of the pending lawsuits:
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act
The League of Women Voters of the United States is part of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of 126 national organizations working together in strong opposition to the SAVE Act.
The Act was passed by the House in February premised on the unfounded contention that the United States lacks safeguards to prevent non-citizens and other ineligible people from voting in federal elections. If enacted, it would require those registering to vote (either for the first time or because they have moved to a new voting district) to go to an election official’s office and present documentary proof of their U.S. citizenship. Failure to do so would bar them from voting in a federal election. The Act would also require those seeking to vote in a federal election to present an approved photo ID.
Passage of the SAVE Act would disenfranchise a large number of voters. The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that more than 21 million US citizens of voting age do not have ready access to documents proving their citizenship, such as a passport or a birth certificate. Voters who have changed their name after marriage, divorce, or a change in gender identity may be turned away if their current name does not match that on the voter rolls or on their ID. Because it is customary in our country for women to take their spouse’s name when they marry, an estimated 69 million lack a birth certificate that lists their current name. The SAVE Act would also disenfranchise trans voters, and older adults who may no longer drive and have no current ID.
Use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program for Mass Voter Purges
The SAVE Program, launched in 1987 (and with an acronym confusingly similar to the SAVE Act), is administered by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component of the Department of Homeland Security. It is intended to help federal, state, and local agencies verify individuals’ eligibility for government benefits based on their immigration status. The Trump administration wants to expand the use of the SAVE Program database to purge registered voters that it contends are immigrants ineligible to vote. To do so, it wants to augment the SAVE database with information from other government databases, including one managed by the Social Security Administration that is known to contain unreliable information on citizenship status.
The League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters of Virginia, League of Women Voters of Louisiana, League of Women Voters of Texas, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have filed the case League of Women Voters v. US Department of Homeland Security. The coalition is represented in court by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Democracy Forward Foundation, and Fair Elections Center. The League is suing the administration to prevent use of the SAVE database. It argues that not only is the database’s information unreliable, but its expanded use would illegally disclose the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans in violation of privacy protections promised by the Social Security Act and other privacy laws.
The DC District Court issued a decision on July 8, 2026, upholding the League’s position. It rejected the government’s request for a stay pending appeal, characterizing the government’s claims of harm as “manufactured,” and the government’s arguments as specious. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals recently upheld the district court’s decision.
And then on September 25, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court determined that the appeals court decision improperly inhibited “the federal government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections.” It paused enforcement of the appellate court decision and allowed a limited use of the SAVE Program.
The Supreme Court acknowledged that states will not be able to use the SAVE Program to purge masses of voters from the rolls so close to the midterm elections. This is because the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also known as the motor voter law, established a "quiet period," prohibiting mass purges within 90 days before an election so that people mistakenly flagged or removed from the rolls would have sufficient time to discover any errors and correct their records in time to vote. The Supreme Court majority, however, interpreted the motor voter law as allowing individualized assessments of a voter's eligibility during the quiet period, limiting the impact of its decision.
It is important to note that both the Supreme Court's and the appeals court's decisions are interim rulings. Final decisions will be issued in the future.
U.S. Postal Service Enforcement of Trump Executive Order Restricting Voting by Mail
In another case, League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, the League of Women Voters of the United States, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, and multiple partners filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging President Trump’s Executive Order that would restrict mail-in voting. The lawsuit also challenges a rule issued by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to implement the Executive Order. Notwithstanding that several states have already sent out mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterm elections, the USPS rule directs all states to make significant changes. They must redesign their mail ballot envelopes, create unique bar codes for every ballot, and upload an advance list of all mail voters to a new and untested federal portal, which is not yet operational. The rule also empowers USPS to refuse to deliver mail ballots to certain voters.
On September 4, 2026, the District Court enjoined (forbade) USPS from enforcing key parts of the implementation rule. It found that the rule was likely unconstitutional because the Constitution grants Congress and the States, not the President, the right to regulate elections. It also found that not only was the USPS rule unlawful, but that enforcing it would make voter disenfranchisement “practically inevitable.”
The administration appealed this decision. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court and refused the Trump administration’s request to stay (prevent implementation) of the injunction. This means that the Postal Service cannot implement the rule until after a trial that determines whether or not the rule is proper, something highly unlikely to occur before the November 3 midterms.
The President asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Appeals Court decision and grant a stay so the rule could be applied to the midterm elections. On September 14, 2026, the Supreme Court rejected this request. This means that states can continue to send out and process mail ballots using the same processes they have used in the past.
These are but some of the ways that the League is involved at the state and national level in litigation protecting voting rights. For a complete list of the 42 active cases (yes, 42!) filed by the League to fight voter suppression at the state and federal levels, visit the online LWV Legal Center.
Thank you for your steadfast support of the League as it vigorously defends the hard-won voting rights of all American citizens.
– Georgia and Lisa