Sen. Alex Padilla recently introduced legislation to prevent unwarranted purging of voter rolls across the country.<\/p>\n
The bill<\/a> by the California Democrat and more than 20 other members Congress has little chance of passing. But the measure and a related lawsuit<\/a> may keep a spotlight on the potential for the Trump administration to block qualified voters from casting ballots in 2026 and future elections.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the former legislator from San Diego, said<\/a> in a statement that the Department of Justice \u201cfailed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands\u201d and its lawsuit has no basis in any previous department practice or policy, according to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n Sens. Padilla and Gary Peters of Michigan subsequently joined a lawsuit<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n 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 But DHS justified the effort, in part, with the baseless claim that \u201cillegal aliens have exploited outdated systems to defraud Americans and taint our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n On its face, it might seem reasonable to take further steps to ensure only citizens are participating in federal elections. But there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Elections since have never been more secure and transparent. Yet Trump and his allies continue to insist the 2020 election was \u201crigged\u201d to guarantee his defeat, and he is on a campaign to reshape the voting process to boost his Republican Party.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s districts.<\/p>\n Earlier executive orders and other actions by Trump and his administration are aimed at requiring more documentation to register to vote \u2014 including proof of citizenship \u2014 and limiting how people can vote. All the while, they have been casting aspersions on election systems, voting machines and election officials.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n At least for now, it appears Trump doesn\u2019t have the legal authority to do some of what he plans.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> pending another case.<\/p>\n Trump is further pushing the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to decertify<\/a> every voting machine it previously certified.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 including Fox News<\/a> and NewsMax<\/a> \u2014 paid hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to Dominion Voting Systems.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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,<\/a> and journalists.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a difference a rigged and crooked election had on our country,\u201d Trump said in a March speech. \u201cAnd the people who did this to us should go to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n The administration this year launched an investigation<\/a> of former top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs, a Trump appointee, who had concluded the 2020 election was the \u201cmost secure in American history\u201d and there was no evidence it was \u201cin any way compromised.\u201d<\/p>\n That was just months after the president granted clemency<\/a> to nearly all the people charged or convicted \u2014 including those who assaulted law enforcement officers \u2014 in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in an effort to block Joe Biden\u2019s victory over Trump.<\/p>\n Like other moves to meddle in the election process, the Trump administration\u2019s quest to tap into state voter rolls has yet to fully play out. Among the information sought is the voter\u2019s full name, date of birth, address, state driver\u2019s license number and the last four digits of their Social Security number.<\/p>\n