{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-peters-file-amicus-brief-opposing-trump-administrations-illegal-ploy-to-purge-voter-rolls/", "Padilla, Peters File Amicus Brief Opposing Trump Administration\u2019s Illegal Ploy to Purge Voter Rolls", "2025-10-15", "2025", "2025-10", "Democrat", "Senate", "CA", "Alex Padilla", "P000145", "www.padilla.senate.gov", "padilla", "https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "Senators argue that DHS\u2019 creation of a massive voter information database without congressional notification violates Privacy Act\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, filed an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit opposing the Trump Administration\u2019s illegal ongoing attempts to purge state voter rolls across the country by developing a massive interagency database of Americans\u2019 sensitive personal data. Their amicus brief in League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security endorses the plaintiffs\u2019 motion for a stay and a preliminary injunction to stop the Administration\u2019s widespread collection of Americans\u2019 legally protected data. The Senators argue that the overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to sift through voter rolls with no direct notice to Congress violates the Privacy Act and lacks legal authority.\n\nThe League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and other plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward Foundation, the Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Fair Elections Center.\n\nDHS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) have dramatically expanded DHS\u2019 SAVE program \u2014 originally meant to verify an individual\u2019s immigration status for determining benefit eligibility \u2014 to examine the citizenship of voters on state voter rolls in response to false, unsubstantiated concerns of rampant noncitizen voting. Experts and officials have warned that the reconstructed SAVE program lacks essential safeguards and could lead to errors when applied to voter rolls, since it does not properly account for Americans born before 1978 or naturalized citizens.\n\nNevertheless, the information of more than 33 million voters has already been run through this new system with little to no transparency, further raising the alarm on how that information will be used. These concerns are especially urgent given that DOJ has sent letters to at least 38 states inquiring about state voter maintenance practices, while recently filing targeted lawsuits against eight states, including California and Michigan, for their refusal to hand over unfettered access to their state\u2019s sensitive voter information and registration lists to the federal government.\n\nIn their amicus brief, the Senators argued that the secretive overhaul of the SAVE program to create a voter database violates the Privacy Act\u2019s clear notification requirements to permit congressional oversight and the protection of Americans\u2019 sensitive data. Congress would typically receive a System of Records Notification (SORN) update upon a large restructuring of a program\u2019s use like that made to SAVE to ensure they can uphold their oversight responsibilities; however, DHS did not provide Congress any notification. DHS would also issue an updated Privacy Impact Assessment for SAVE assessing any risks to privacy and potential mitigations, which it has not done thus far.\n\n\u201cDHS is actively advertising and encouraging states to use the overhauled SAVE program for voter verification and several states have begun to do so, running tens of millions of voter files through this expanded system,\u201d wrote the Senators in the legal brief. \u201c\u2026 These actions \u2014 which, again, are occurring outside the bounds of the law \u2014 create an intolerable risk that eligible American voters will be disenfranchised and perhaps even wrongly prosecuted for their alleged ineligibility. This cannot continue.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is no doubt these changes [to the SAVE program] require statutory notice given their significant nature. Again, no SORN has been issued. Nor has Congress otherwise received more than cursory information from the executive branch on this issue,\u201d continued the Senators. \u201cDespite repeated outreach to DHS to receive clarity around the SAVE program overhaul, to confirm the accuracy of the reported expanded use of the program, and to ascertain the steps USCIS is taking (or not taking) to educate state and local officials on the potential for falsely identifying individuals as non-citizens with the program as modified, Senators have still not received a response to their letter from DHS as of the filing of this brief.\u201d\n\nThe Senators warned that the requests for statewide voter registration files seek personally identifying and confidential information, including voting history, violating the Privacy Act and First Amendment freedoms. For example, the DOJ Civil Rights Division\u2019s letter to Illinois requested information \u201cincluding the registrant\u2019s full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver\u2019s license number or the last four digits of the registrant\u2019s social security number.\u201d\n\nAdditionally, the Senators made clear that the executive branch lacks constitutional or statutory authority to create a national voter database, as Congress, not the President, can set voter registration laws and preempt state procedures. Congress has passed two laws, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Help America Vote Act (HAVA), to make sure elections are administered freely and fairly with properly maintained voter rolls, but the DOJ has no statutory role influencing voter registration lists.\n\nSenator Padilla has led the charge in opposing the Trump Administration\u2019s thinly veiled attempts to purge voter rolls and investigate unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, including his letter with Senator Peters and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) opposing the reckless expansion of the SAVE program. Last week, Senator Padilla and Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio-03) announced the Voter Purge Protection Act to prevent the Trump Administration\u2019s ongoing voter purge efforts, including by prohibiting the removal of individuals from the voter rolls due to changes in residence or not voting in previous elections. Last month, Padilla condemned DOJ\u2019s lawsuits against states for protecting sensitive voter information.\n\nFull text of the amicus brief is available here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-peters-file-amicus-brief-opposing-trump-administrations-illegal-ploy-to-purge-voter-rolls/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6886371411383152, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}