Senators support lawsuit seeking to stop new federal database being used to purge voters
WASHINGTON D.C. – California Senator Alex Padilla joined Senator Gary Peters in filing an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to stop the Trump Administration from gathering voter information to create a database intended to purge voters from state registries nationwide.
The lawsuit, League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is a class action suit filed in federal court in Washington D.C. seeking to halt the use of an existing database across multiple federal agencies to allegedly create a database of all registered voters.
Wednesday's amicus brief noted that, "both DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and DOJ [Department of Justice] have publicly confirmed that DOJ is sharing this information with DHS in order to 'scrub' voter registration lists, which are 'being screened for ineligible voter entries.' Thus, what is publicly known strongly suggests that the Trump Administration has overhauled the SAVE program in order to unilaterally expand its own power to impact federal elections — at the potential cost of individual privacy and voting rights."
The database, known as the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, is a decades-old tool for state and federal agencies to verify citizenship status for people looking to access government programs or licenses.
Since the update, several states established new agreements with the federal government to expand the use of the database or announced its use to purge voter rolls, and the Department of Homeland Security made millions of dollars in election security funding for states dependent on the use of the database and compliance with submitting state information to the federal government.
"We encourage states with questions to work with their state election offices for basic implementation requirements," shared the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages the election security grant program. "If any state is not found to be compliant, we reserve the right to withhold funding or terminate the grants."
Changes to the conditions for states to access the election security funding also included the removal of language that prohibited the use of the federal funds, "to suppress voter registration or turnout".
The election policy changes were met with a broad array of responses by state authorities.
"Where's that data going? And at the end of the day, is it stored? What are they going to do with it? Who has access? Is it shared?" pondered Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson. "I don't want to do something that I don't necessarily have the ability to do without legislative authority. So we just want to be very clear on that before we move forward."
Other states chose to not accept the new conditions for the grants.
"The Department of Homeland Security is trying to back-door changes to our election laws," stated Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after denying about $130,000 in election security funding. "DHS [Department of Homeland Security] can't require us to use that system."
The Department of Justice has already sent formal requests to 38 states for copies of their respective voter registrations since May and most states, except Indiana which provided its entire statewide voter registration when requested, have only provided publicly available voter lists and eight states -California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Pennsylvania- are being sued by the federal government to force them to turn over their voter information.
Voters in Nebraska and South Carolina have filed cases in state courts to prevent their private information from being shared with the Department of Justice.
Federal law requires states to maintain accurate voter rolls and allow people in most states to register to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles, but does not authorize the Department of Justice to participate in that maintenance.
The League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs allege that the use of the SAVE system to gather information about voters and facilitate their removal from voter rolls is a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974 and the U.S. Constitution.
"This administration’s attempt to manipulate federal data systems to unlawfully target its own citizens and purge voters is one of the most serious threats to free and fair elections in decades," argued Celina Stewart the CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States. "The League [of Women Voters] is asking the court to act swiftly to stop this abuse of power before it disenfranchises lawful voters. Every citizen deserves privacy, fairness, and the freedom to vote without fear of government interference."
Senator Peters is the Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Senator Padilla is the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration as well as the former Secretary of State of California where he was responsible for managing elections in the state and their amicus brief is based on their oversight role in the Senate.
The Senators also noted in their amicus brief that they represent states that are subject to federal litigation over statewide voter registration lists and there is a risk that voters born before 1978 or are naturalized citizens could be improperly removed from voter registrations by states using the SAVE database.
"DHS is actively advertising and encouraging states to use the overhauled SAVE program for voter verification and several states have begun to do so, running tens of millions of voter files through this expanded system," stated the Senators in their amicus brief. "Despite repeated outreach to DHS to receive clarity around the SAVE program overhaul, to confirm the accuracy of the reported expanded use of the program, and to ascertain the steps USCIS is taking (or not taking) to educate state and local officials on the potential for falsely identifying individuals as non-citizens with the program as modified, Senators have still not received a response to their letter from DHS as of the filing of this brief."
The U.S. Constitution states in Article I, Section 4 that decisions regarding, "the times, places, and manner of holding Elections" are delegated to Congress and does not explicitly empower the executive branch with such authority.
"The administration’s unlawful consolidation of sensitive data poses an unprecedented threat to naturalized voters’ right to participate in our democracy," explained Jon Sherman, Litigation Director at the nonpartisan Fair Elections Center. "Relying on outdated and incomplete data to assess voters’ citizenship status in the present day is completely illogical. This is precisely why Congress has forbidden using such information in new ways without public notice and input."
