Trump Administration’s Plan for State Citizenship Lists Faces Delays

Mystery Deepens Around Federal Voter Citizenship Lists as Deadline Passes

The Trump administration’s plan to compile comprehensive voter citizenship lists across states has hit a snag, missing its own proposed deadline. The ambitious project aimed to create a detailed database of citizens eligible to vote, but concerns over its execution and legal challenges have delayed its launch.

The original deadline to debut this information was set for September 4, which is 60 days before the upcoming midterm elections. However, Department of Justice attorneys have informed opposing parties in two lawsuits that the administration will now provide a 48-hour notice before the launch of the state citizenship portal, as per recent court documents.

Responsibility for maintaining voter lists traditionally lies with individual states, as dictated by the Constitution. This move marks the first federal attempt to centralize such data. Despite this, President Trump has consistently moved towards consolidating executive control over election processes.

The foundation for this initiative is an executive order signed by Trump on March 31. Although a lower court initially blocked the order’s implementation in several states and the District of Columbia, the Supreme Court recently allowed it to proceed.

This executive order tasks the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to generate “State Citizenship Lists” and distribute them to state authorities well ahead of federal elections. Additionally, the U.S. Attorney General is directed to prioritize legal action against officials who distribute federal ballots to ineligible voters.

Concerns about the accuracy of these lists have been raised by Jules Torti, counsel at Protect Democracy. Torti warned, “States here have a strong incentive to actually use these lists to try to avoid federal investigation. But we know that these lists are going to be based on really inaccurate data. So the risk of disenfranchisement here is really, really palpable.”

In response, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with individual voters, has filed a motion to prevent the administration from proceeding with its plans to create and publish these citizenship lists. The lawsuit argues that releasing this data violates several federal laws, including the Privacy Act and the Social Security Act.

The case also highlights that federal agencies often do not possess the most current and accurate citizenship information, especially for individuals who have recently naturalized or those whose records have not been updated in government databases.

Despite missing the initial deadline, the administration is still moving forward, with a domain secured for the portal. Although not live, a “Coming Soon” message was recently displayed on the site, according to court filings.

The legal battle over this initiative continues, as Democratic party groups have also filed motions accusing the administration of not providing adequate notice about the state citizenship portal’s development. This comes amid the Department of Homeland Security’s increased scrutiny of voter rolls to identify noncitizens, despite findings that such occurrences are exceedingly rare.

Furthermore, ICE has sought vendors to collect voter data from all states and territories to aid Homeland Security’s fraud detection efforts, according to a recent request for information published online.

Additional reporting by NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang.