Nearly 30 Democratic senators are warning two government agencies against “any illegal activity” to enforce President Trump’s March executive order aimed at forcing states to verify citizenship to vote.
Voting rights are already limited to U.S. citizens, with the Constitution leaving it to states to decide how to conduct elections.
But a March order by Trump — which has been challenged in court by several states — sought to impose new requirements, including limits on mail-in voting and the use of databases from Trump administration organizations to verify citizenship.
“The foreseeable result is that tens of thousands of eligible U.S. citizen voters will find on Election Day that they are barred from voting because they were mistakenly removed from the voter rolls,” the senators wrote in a letter led by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Trump’s order directs the Social Security Administration (SSA) to create a “list of state citizens” based on its data, naturalization records and the System Verification of Alien Rights (SAVE) database, an existing database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used to determine eligibility for federal programs.
“Indeed, reports have established that eligible Americans were targeted for removal from the voter rolls after being falsely labeled as noncitizens by the SAVE program, in part due to faulty data shared by the Social Security Administration,” the senators wrote.
The letter also raised concerns about the accuracy of the SAVE database, noting that the Department of Homeland Security had previously said the database “may produce inaccurate results.”
The letter states that “DHS appears to have rolled out a radically revised SAVE program without regard to accuracy or data security and has taken only token retroactive steps in an attempt to minimally comply with federal privacy and notification requirements in the face of litigation.” The letter noted that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin pledged to use SAVE only for lawful purposes.
“At President Trump’s direction, you are now required to use the SAVE program to facilitate additional violations of the law and the Constitution.”
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the National Security Agency immediately responded to requests for comment.
The letter said the SSA was assigned to participate in the vote “despite the fact that the SSA does not possess clear information regarding U.S. citizenship and there is no legal or historical precedent for federal involvement in state elections, let alone SSA involvement in state elections.”
Peters and other lawmakers asked for briefings from the leadership of both agencies.
Their boycott comes amid broader concerns that Trump could interfere with the upcoming election, including by deploying the National Guard or seeking to impose demands on states they have no obligation to comply with.
Twenty-three states have filed lawsuits over the order, arguing that Trump does not have the authority to dictate to states how to administer their elections.
Trump’s order comes as Congress has failed to advance legislation he has called for requiring proof of citizenship to vote.
Numerous studies have found that there are only a handful of cases where noncitizens vote, and states have a variety of ways to verify voters’ eligibility.
“Despite the administration’s claims that these mandates are necessary to prevent voter fraud, numerous laws and procedures already prevent noncitizens from voting, and independent studies consistently find that voter fraud is extremely rare,” the letter states.
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