Democratic senators blast Trump scheme to ‘rig the election’ by illegally accessing voter data, following whistleblower claims

Responding to new whistleblower claims, Democrats warned against what they called the latest Trump administration move to “rig the election” by illegally accessing voter data.

In a Monday afternoon press conference, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately stop efforts to access state voting records.

“We are weeks away from the midterms,” Schumer said. “Americans should not have to fear being targeted by their own government because of how they’ve registered to vote.”

In a report produced by the Democracy Defenders Fund, the whistleblower alleged that DHS agents were directed to build cases against noncitizen voters at a rate of five cases per hour, with a daily quota of 40 people. Agents posed as voters to use state voter registration websites to secretly access the data, the report claimed.

Some states prohibit the kind of activity DHS has reportedly engaged in by restricting access to individual voter files to only voters themselves.

“In order to find an exact match, your voter registration record must have either a California driver license or identification card (DL/ID) number, or the last four digits of your social security number,” California’s state voter registration website reads, according to the whistleblower report.

Padilla slammed the ploy as a last-ditch effort in the wake of a losing legal battle. Trump’s Department of Justice is currently 0-23 in its cases seeking to seize state voter rolls. 

The administration has also failed to offer any evidence of voter fraud to support its crusade against mail voting, which the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on any day now.

“It’s unreliable data, combined with data they couldn’t get through failed litigation, being used to manufacture allegations and misidentify individuals as an ‘unlawful voter’ and that false label has serious, serious consequences,” Padilla said.

Padilla and Schumer urged voters to make a plan for voting and check their registration status to ensure their names have not been removed from rosters without their knowledge.