The Trump administration has quietly established a database that can search for citizenship data nationwide. Although it emphasizes that this is to provide state and local election officials with a convenient verification tool to ensure that only citizens can vote, this move may be opposed by Democrats and those who are worried about voter information being leaked. Many people are also worried that this data system may be used for other purposes.
The Daily Mail reported that Trump has been accusing the Democrats of deliberately instigating illegal immigrants to vote, and this is the result of losing the 2020 election to Biden. In the 2024 election, he even pointed out that the reason why the Democrats relaxed the entry of illegal immigrants in large numbers was “to let them vote.”
Therefore, Trump signed an executive order after returning to power in January this year, instructing Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to establish a system to ensure that only American citizens can vote in the election. As a result, it was quickly established in just a few months.
Establishing a centralized national database of personal information of citizens has long been considered out of reach, but the Trump administration was able to quickly establish a national citizenship database because after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team was allowed to access multiple government systems such as Social Security, the Department of Homeland Security integrated the federal database network, allowing state and county election officials to quickly check the citizenship status on the voter list.
However, with almost no knowledge of the outside world, many experts questioned the accuracy of the system established so quickly, warning that it would have a significant impact on voter registration and could even completely change the US election. Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, even described it as “creepy”.
It is reported that the verification of this new citizen database is an expansion of the “Systematic Verification of Alien Benefits” (SAVE) system currently used to verify the identity of legal residents, but election officials have been complaining that the SAVE system is cumbersome to operate.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a statement in May saying that the system had been updated “to ensure that there is a single, reliable source of immigration status and citizenship identity verification across the country,” suggesting that a new citizenship database has been built.
State and local election officials can verify citizenship by entering a Social Security number, preventing foreigners from voting in U.S. elections. Noem is expected to contact state chief election officials soon to encourage the use of the system to verify voter identities.
