Officials from Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio reached a settlement with the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem, nearly a year after states under the president sued the agency individually. Joe BidenHe alleged that the previous administration was hiding information about citizenship status, which was necessary to determine whether thousands of registered voters were actually voters, eligible to vote,
Every state could soon search thousands of voters using names, birthdays and Social Security numbers through the federal government’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program. It has been significantly upgraded under the Trump administration. In return, the agreement reached Friday says states can share driver’s license records with the Department of Homeland Security “to assist in improving and modernizing” its database.
Information sharing is likely to be a focal point of the 2026 midterm elections. Voting rights groups have already sued the administration over the expanded program, known as SAVE, arguing that recent updates could result in eligible voters being illegally removed from voter rolls. Separately, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has asked at least half of the states for their complete voter rolls, a request that democratic election official This has raised concerns that the data will be made available to DHS.
Voting by non-citizens in federal elections is illegal and can lead to serious charges and deportation. state review show it is rare for non citizen registering to vote and even rarer That they actually voted.
Still, ahead of the 2024 elections, Trump escalated claims without proof that the noncitizen can vote in sufficient numbers influence the outcomemany Republican candidates and lawmakers at the national level Emphasize that even one instance of a non-citizen voting illegally is one too many.
The SAVE program, which has been in place for decades, is operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a branch of DHS. It has been widely used by local and state officials to check the citizenship status of people applying for public benefits through various federal databases.
According to public announcements, DHS and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency updated the SAVE program earlier this year. It is now free to election officials, allows searches for thousands of voters instead of one at a time, and no longer requires agencies to conduct searches using DHS-issued identification numbers. According to the agreement, when a name, date of birth and government-issued number are entered, the database will return initial verification of citizenship status within 48 hours.
As part of the agreement, Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio will develop a memorandum of understanding with the federal government within 90 days on the use of the SAVE program. The agreement also dictates that they will negotiate a new information-sharing agreement “for the purpose of improving” the SAVE system. This could include providing DHS with 1,000 “randomly selected driver license records” from their state within 90 days.
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