Padilla, Peters, Durbin, Schumer Lead Democratic Colleagues in Demanding DHS and SSA Uphold Federal Law Over President Trump’s Illegal Executive Order to Limit Voting

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Democratic Leader, led 24 of their Democratic colleagues demanding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) follow existing federal law over the March 31 Executive Order signed by President Trump, which violates the Constitution and risks disenfranchising eligible voters. President Trump's directive, which has been challenged in the courts, would require DHS to create eligible voter lists - which the federal government does not have the authority to do. Under the order, DHS is required to use data from the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program that incorporates incorrect and out-of-date citizenship information from SSA, which DHS has acknowledged may produce inaccurate citizenship verification results. If the President's executive order is implemented in place of current federal law, it will prevent eligible voters from exercising their fundamental right to vote.

In their letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the senators wrote, "The foreseeable result is that tens of thousands of eligible U.S. citizen voters will discover on Election Day that they are barred from voting because they have been incorrectly removed from voter rolls. Indeed, reports have already confirmed that eligible Americans are being targeted for removal from voter rolls after being erroneously flagged as non-citizens by the SAVE program. As state and local election officials have stated, the SAVE program's expanded use for voter roll maintenance would likely lead to even greater wrongful disenfranchisement."

"The Department should immediately discontinue the SAVE program's use for these illegal and non-statutory purposes and take no steps pursuant to the Executive Order that violate the law and risk disenfranchising eligible voters," the senators concluded.

In their letter to SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano, the senators wrote, "SSA data is already at the core of the overhauled SAVE program at DHS, which continues to have serious accuracy and reliability concerns. State and local elections officials, nonpartisan voter advocacy organizations, federal agencies, and courts have made clear that the SAVE program is not appropriate for voter roll maintenance because incorrect and out-of-date citizenship information in the databases it queries, including SSA databases, leads to eligible voters often being incorrectly flagged as non-citizens."

"Given that SSA is an unreliable source for information on U.S. citizenship, that recent DOGE activities at SSA put the American public's data at risk, and that federal interference in state-run elections is a clear violation of the Constitution's Elections Clause, SSA should immediately discontinue its data sharing activities and take no steps pursuant to the Executive Order that violate the law and risk disenfranchising eligible voters," the senators concluded.

Padilla, Peters, Durbin, and Schumer previously led their Democratic colleagues in demanding the United States Postal Service (USPS) uphold existing federal law over President Trump's executive order restricting vote by mail. The executive order, which has been challenged in the courts, attempts to turn the Postal Service into an election administrator and regulator, when it is supposed to be a nonpartisan agency whose only priority is to deliver the mail. It would have a chilling effect on the eligibility of American voters to exercise their constitutional right to vote by imposing unnecessary barriers and would corrupt the independent mission of the Postal Service by enabling it to determine who can vote by mail.

Read the full letter to DHS Secretary Mullin here.

Read the full letter to SSA Commissioner Bisignano here.

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