Sen. Alex Padilla recently introduced legislation to prevent unwarranted purging of voter rolls across the country.
The bill by the California Democrat and more than 20 other members Congress has little chance of passing. But the measure and a related lawsuit may keep a spotlight on the potential for the Trump administration to block qualified voters from casting ballots in 2026 and future elections.
The Trump administration has been seeking personal voter information from dozens of states. Many states have resisted, and the administration has sued several, including California, to get access.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the former legislator from San Diego, said in a statement that the Department of Justice “failed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands” and its lawsuit has no basis in any previous department practice or policy, according to The Associated Press.
Sens. Padilla and Gary Peters of Michigan subsequently joined a lawsuit that claims the Department of Homeland Security is violating the privacy of millions of Americans. DHS has expanded the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, and the lawsuit says voter records had been passed through the program without enough oversight.
Why the administration wants access to the voter rolls, which laws say are to be controlled and maintained by each state, is not entirely clear. But DHS justified the effort, in part, with the baseless claim that “illegal aliens have exploited outdated systems to defraud Americans and taint our elections.”
On its face, it might seem reasonable to take further steps to ensure only citizens are participating in federal elections. But there’s been no evidence that widespread voting fraud, by undocumented immigrants or others, has occurred in substantial, election-altering ways, according to years of research, litigation and election reviews.
Any notion that this is a high-minded, good-government effort by the administration has to be put in the context that Trump has consistently sought to cast doubt on legitimate elections for at least a decade, dating back to his successful campaign for president in the 2016 election.
Elections since have never been more secure and transparent. Yet Trump and his allies continue to insist the 2020 election was “rigged” to guarantee his defeat, and he is on a campaign to reshape the voting process to boost his Republican Party.
The redistricting arms race Trump launched in Texas is the topline election news at the moment, given that Californians are now voting on a proposal to redraw the state’s districts.
Earlier executive orders and other actions by Trump and his administration are aimed at requiring more documentation to register to vote — including proof of citizenship — and limiting how people can vote. All the while, they have been casting aspersions on election systems, voting machines and election officials.
Trump has tried all this before, but he has weakened or done away with institutions that successfully resisted many of these efforts during his first term, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive, nonpartisan organization.
At least for now, it appears Trump doesn’t have the legal authority to do some of what he plans.
Trump has issued orders seeking to ban the use of mail ballots or at least the counting of those cast by Election Day but received afterward — a common practice in both Democratic and Republican states. Democrats generally have been more successful at utilizing mail ballots, which has a lot to do with why Trump and Republicans want to outlaw or limit them.
Some of his supporters have filed lawsuits to halt post-Election Day counting, including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Bonsall, whose litigation is currently on hold pending another case.
Trump is further pushing the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to decertify every voting machine it previously certified.
Previous suggestions from the Trump camp that certain voting machines were faulty or had been manipulated in 2020 were widely debunked. Conservative news organizations that made such unfounded claims — including Fox News and NewsMax — paid hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to Dominion Voting Systems.
A Trump executive order in March calls for making the prosecution of election crimes a priority. Again, nothing objectionable about that on the surface, but the targets of potential prosecution hardly suggest an even-handed approach.
Trump and top appointees, who also are election deniers, have threatened to prosecute officials who oversaw the 2020 election, voter registration and outreach groups, Democratic fundraising organizations such as ActBlue, and journalists.
“What a difference a rigged and crooked election had on our country,” Trump said in a March speech. “And the people who did this to us should go to jail.”
The administration this year launched an investigation of former top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs, a Trump appointee, who had concluded the 2020 election was the “most secure in American history” and there was no evidence it was “in any way compromised.”
That was just months after the president granted clemency to nearly all the people charged or convicted — including those who assaulted law enforcement officers — in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in an effort to block Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.
Like other moves to meddle in the election process, the Trump administration’s quest to tap into state voter rolls has yet to fully play out. Among the information sought is the voter’s full name, date of birth, address, state driver’s license number and the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Even some Republican states have balked, at least initially, citing legal concerns about transferring some of the information.
Among the concerns is that legitimate voters will be taken off the rolls and would have to reregister if they can — if they are even aware of what happened. A broader fear is that this information will become part of a federal surveillance database.
The Padilla bill would prevent the withdrawal of eligibility to vote in elections unless supported by evidence, such as proof that a registered voter moved out of state or has died. It also requires that voters taken off the rolls be notified within 48 hours of removal.
It would be nice to give the administration the benefit of the doubt here. But with Trump’s long assault on the electoral system, it’s hard not to be suspicious that what they do will be anything but benign.
What they said
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma to The New York Times.
“We believe in the federalist system — that’s states’ rights. . . Oklahomans would lose their mind if (Gov. JB) Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”
Originally Published: October 19, 2025 at 5:00 AM PDT