Trump administration overhauls database for election officials to check voters’ citizenship status

The Trump administration has overhauled a database that election officials can use to verify voters' citizenship status.

In May, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it updated the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to allow election officials to input Social Security numbers to help verify citizenship. The Department of Government Efficiency was involved in the effort.

Trump campaigned on a promise to require proof of citizenship at the polls; it is one of 75 promises we are tracking on our MAGA-Meter. This promise is borne out of falsehoods and exaggerations about noncitizen voting. Trump has spread falsehoods about noncitizen voting for a decade.

Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and cases of noncitizens voting are rare. If they vote, noncitizens risk immigration consequences including deportation, fines or jail. When people register to vote, they attest that they are U.S. citizens, and states use records including driver's licenses or jury forms to check citizenship status. 

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 21 states and 29 local governments are registered to use SAVE for voter verification. Five states and 27 counties joined in recent months. 

Some Republican-led states have said since May they will use SAVE, including Louisiana, South Carolina, Wyoming, Indiana and Alabama. 

Texas officials said in June that they are investigating 33 "potential noncitizens" who voted in the 2024 election. About 11 million Texas voted in the election.

Voting rights experts raised concern about SAVE

Implemented in 1987, SAVE is a web service used by government agencies to verify immigration status to determine whether someone is eligible for benefits such as Medicaid, housing loans and unemployment. For more than a decade, some states, including Florida, at times used SAVE for voter registration checks. 

The Campaign Legal Center, one of the groups that sued the administration over a Trump voting executive order, said it had "grave concerns" about the tool's accuracy.

"The opportunities for error — with Americans' freedom to vote on the line — are many," Danielle Lang, the center's senior director of voting rights, told PolitiFact.

Officials will use Social Security data to vet citizenship, but that might be outdated if an immigrant later became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

"This data will be reliably stale and will target naturalized citizens for undue suspicion," Lang said. 

The Social Security Administration began adding citizenship tags to data 40 years ago, according to the Institute for Responsive Government, an organization providing governments with research, including on election infrastructure. That means that the administration doesn't have citizenship data for everyone.

The institute recommended that election officials proceed carefully with using SAVE. USCIS merged a massive amount of data from multiple agencies and the new features will require testing and validation, the institute said.

"Data of unknown or unverified quality must not be used to initiate voter removals without strict adherence to all safeguards in state and federal law," the institute wrote.

Our ruling

The overhaul of the SAVE database does not add a proof of citizenship requirement at the polls. It adds a tool for election officials to look for noncitizens on the voter rolls. 

Efforts toward the bigger promise need legislative and judicial approval, which could be tough. The House's SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote, has not received a Senate vote. Federal judges preliminarily blocked parts of Trump's executive order to require documentary proof of citizenship at the polls. 

We will monitor the litigation and election officials' use of the database before the 2026 midterm elections. For now, we rate this promise Stalled.

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