President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday calling for the creation a nationalized voter roll.
The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to make “citizenship lists” through naturalization records, social security records and data from the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE). The SAVE program was initially created to check if individuals were citizens eligible for assistance programs, not large scale citizenship verification.
Arizona has already pledged to challenge the order. The state already has some of the strictest voter registration and ID requirements in the country, requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register and voter ID at polls. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes calling Trump’s order a “disgusting overreach.”
“This move is nothing more than a push to weaponize the sensitive personal information of voters in this country, an effort my office will continue to fight unrelentingly,” Fontes wrote in a statement Tuesday.
This isn’t the first step that the Trump administration has taken to create a national voter roll. Attorney General Pam Bondi has requested states turn over their voter rolls to be put through the SAVE program and purge voters at their behest. The Department of Justice has sued at least 24 states that refused to do so. Bondi’s efforts have largely failed, with judges across the country dismissing many of the lawsuits.
A little over a year ago, Trump signed a similar executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, which is not required under current federal election laws. It was quickly challenged in multiple courts. A D.C. district court blocked the provision requiring documentary proof of citizenship in October.
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As for Tuesday’s order, Trump critics are in agreement that it’s illegal.
“The executive order signed by Donald Trump is an unlawful power grab by a failing President designed to bolster the do-nothing Republican Congress,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a March 31 statement.
“See you in court. You will lose,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on X.
In an interview with Salon Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center for Justice said the Constitution is clear on who controls elections.
“ The US Constitution gives states and Congress, the authority to regulate elections, that is to set the rules that govern our elections, and gives zero power to the President when it comes to regulating elections,” the center’s voting rights and elections director said.
