Senators Want Answers on Use of DHS Database to Purge Voters

If Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials can brief an election-denier group on how states are now using its databases to verify voters’ citizenship, then they can brief Congress, a trio of Democratic senators wrote to DHS Sec. Kristi Noem Tuesday. 

Under President Donald Trump, DHS upgraded its Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, integrating data from the Social Security Administration and making the database available to state officials to confirm voter registrants’ citizenship for free. 

The rapid expansion of a system previously used by federal agencies to confirm eligibility for social safety net benefits into a widely-accessible, centralized database of U.S. citizens creates considerable risks, Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said in a letter.

“Data quality issues may cause state and local officials who rely on the program to receive false positives or incomplete results,” they wrote. “Public transparency and assurances that the Department is appropriately protecting citizens’ rights, including privacy, is extremely important.”

The senators said they were troubled that the SAVE program had been expanded without the normal amount of documentation and oversight, including public notice and notice to Congress. And they said they are “gravely concerned” that a DHS official briefed members of the Election Integrity Network, a group that advocates for tightening voting rules and was founded by Trump ally Cleta Mitchell, about the developments in June — a briefing first reported by Democracy Docket.  

Padilla, the ranking member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, and Peters, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called on DHS to brief committee staff on SAVE, and on what information the agency has shared with non-governmental organizations. 

During the nomination process, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow declined to provide substantive answers to questions Padilla raised about SAVE. Edlow was confirmed by the Senate Tuesday on a partyline vote. 

Republican election officials have already begun using the untested DHS database to remove potential non-citizens from the voter rolls. Despite all the attention GOP officials pay to the issue, reports show actual incidents of noncitizens voting are extremely rare and mostly a result of confusion over eligibility rules — not intentional attempts to illegally sway elections.

Federal privacy laws require government agencies to provide public notice before they collect or use personal information, like Social Security numbers, in new ways. 

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.