{"id":69554,"date":"2025-03-03T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=69554"},"modified":"2025-03-03T11:08:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:08:45","slug":"secretaries-state-letter-dhs-noem-noncitizen-voting-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/secretaries-state-letter-dhs-noem-noncitizen-voting-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican secretaries of state ask DHS for better data to check for noncitizen voters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the federal government dials back some of its election security programs, particularly those that prevented interference by Russia<\/a>, a group of Republican secretaries of state are asking for a different variety of election safeguards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter<\/a> addressed to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Norm last Thursday, 21 secretaries of state asked for improvements to her department\u2019s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, program, so they can more easily detect noncitizens who are voting in elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs President Trump has explicitly conveyed, ensuring noncitizens do not vote in our elections is crucial to protecting the integrity of elections in our respective states; however, to vigorously and successfully assume this charge, improvements addressing current limitations within the program are vital,\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SAVE program is a service administered by DHS\u2019s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that allows agencies to check citizenship or immigration status, but it\u2019s outdated and reportedly clumsy to operate. Searches require certain identifiers, like alien registration numbers, and searches can\u2019t be performed using more common personal information, like names and dates of birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secretaries of state asked that Noem make the system available to states at no cost, to make it possible to conduct searches using more identifying information and to make it possible to search for multiple voters at once. They also asked the department to provide more clear guidance to state election officials on when they\u2019re permitted to use the SAVE system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough the implementation of these enhancements, state officials may better serve the entire country, not just their respective constituents,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cDisallowing interference from noncitizens in the elections process is a fundamental role we must not only assume, but champion. We are hopeful, through your support, significant advancements will be made to further protect the integrity of our state and federal elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The request follows a similar one<\/a> made last month by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who also signed last week\u2019s letter. Raffensperger\u2019s request follows an audit last October of his state\u2019s voter rolls that found that just 20 of Georgia\u2019s 8.2 million registered voters were not U.S. citizens. That audit found that none of those 20 had cast a ballot in the 2024 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such low noncitizen voting turnout runs counter to a false claim repeated by some pro-Trump Republicans that millions of illegal immigrants vote in U.S. elections. In fact, analyses have found voting by noncitizens is exceptionally rare. One study<\/a> by The Washington Post last year found 85 cases of noncitizens voting over the two decades stretching from 2002 to 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The push for checks on noncitizen voting also arrives as congressional Republicans advance a new requirement that those registering to vote provide proof of citizenship. Some civil rights groups fear the legislation \u2014 also called SAVE, or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act \u2014 could make it more difficult to register to vote for married people<\/a> who\u2019ve changed their names and other U.S. citizens. More than 21 million Americans of voting age don\u2019t have proof of citizenship on hand, according to a study<\/a> published last year by the Brennan Center for Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harmeet Dhillon, President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to lead the Justice Department\u2019s civil rights division, has said<\/a> she would support legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that U.S. elections are subject to interference by unscrupulous election administrators. He has also repeatedly claimed without evidence that the machines used to count votes are fraudulent. Last week at the White House he called into question the validity of voting machines and mail-in voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, our elections are extremely dishonest,\u201d Trump said<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re the only country in the world that has mail-in voting and all of these different things that we put in. Nobody \u2014 no other country in the world has it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mail-in voting is used by more than 90 countries worldwide, including Australia, Canada, India, Germany and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The request by the secretaries of state follows a separate letter<\/a> sent to DHS the previous week in which the National Association of Secretaries of State, led by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, the group\u2019s president, asked for the preservation of several key programs to safeguard elections. These included cybersecurity services for election offices, physical security assessments for voting locations and election offices and support for the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secretaries of state said the EI-ISAC can \u201cincrease the situational awareness of election offices by notifying officials of cyber threats experienced in other states or jurisdictions.\u201d Cuts at DHS, which included partially terminating an agreement with the nonprofit Center for Internet Security, which runs the EI-ISAC, may have effectively ended its operation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican secretaries of state asked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for changes to a data system that would allow them to check their voter rolls for noncitizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":58248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4677],"tags":[125,5095,5152,15118,25449,25450],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-69554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state","tag-election-security","tag-kristi-noem","tag-secretary-of-state","tag-dhs","tag-noncitizen-voting","tag-save-act","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nRepublican secretaries of state ask 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