The Trump administration has quietly assembled a new searchable database of U.S. citizens.
The program is designed help state election officials cross-check voter registrants across the country to ensure only U.S. citizens are able to cast ballots.
It’s an initiative that follows former DOGE head Elon Musk’s efforts to gain access to Social Security Administration and other agency data.
And it’s likely to be opposed by Democrats and also others concerned that American voters’ data could be breached or compromised.
The administration speedily constructed the system in just a matter of months after Trump issued an executive order directing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to create a system to ensure only citizens vote in elections.
State officials should ‘access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote,’ the order states.
It goes on to say that they should gain access without having to pay a fee.
A detailed report on the new system by National Public Radio calls it a ‘sea change’ in existing policy to provide a roster of U.S. citizens, and a previously ‘third rail’ policy move that the nation has eschewed in the past.
Experts questioned the accuracy of a system assembled so quickly with little public notice, and warn about the impact on voter registration depending on how it is used and maintained.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing ‘access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals’ that voting officials could access
One, University of Virginia School of Law professor Danielle Citron, called the effort to aggregate the massive trove of data a ‘hair on fire’ moment.
The move comes as Trump has made repeated references to illegal immigrants voting, although detailed looks at the issue have found it to be exceedingly rare.
An audit of Georgia’s 8.2 million voter roles found 20 noncitizens registered to vote, with 9 actually casting a ballot.
A look at Iowa’s 2.3 million rolls found 87 times when individuals cast a ballot and then later self-reported they were non-citizens.
Trump has long described a deliberate Democratic conspiracy to try to get illegal immigrants to vote, as he did in the ABC presidential debate.
‘And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English, they don’t know even know what country they’re in practically, and these people are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country,’ Trump said.
It was not immediately clear which states planned to use the new database.
Details of the database come after the Supreme Court issued a bombshell ruling on Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, provoking angry arguments from dueling justices.
DOGE’s moves to gain access to sensitive data drew litigation, but the Supreme Court in June ruled it could have access to agency data.
Trump has repeatedly called the 2020 election rigged despite losing by more than 7 million votes to Joe Biden. He did so again Friday in the Oval Office in response to a softball question when he said: ‘That election was rigged and stolen, and we can’t allow that to happen.’
The new effort expands on the existing Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements to check on the status of legal residents. But election officials who also sometimes used it complained it was unwieldy.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has oversight of the system
People who register to vote are required to attest to their citizenship. Requiring documentation risks keeping people who can’t locate a passport or Social Security card from being able to vote. A database could help solve that, although there are also fears of what would happen to the data and how to manage it
A May announcement by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stated that the system had been updated ‘to ensure a single, reliable source for verifying immigration status and U.S. citizenship nationwide.
State and local authorities can input Social Security numbers to help verify U.S. citizenship and prevent aliens from voting in American elections.
The 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the motor voter law, prohibited states from requiring proof of citizenship, amid fears that it would disenfranchise voters who couldn’t locate a passport or Social Security card.
Instead, voter registration applications allow voters to attest to their citizenship, although states can comb rolls to try to ferret out people who shouldn’t be on them.
There have since been legislative efforts to try to add such a requirement prior to Trump’s order on ‘Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for comment.
