Alex Padilla U.S. Senator for California

Senators to DHS Secretary Noem: “As Secretary, you have a responsibility to assure the public that the Department is acting appropriately to protect citizens’ rights and personally identifiable data.”

Senators criticize DHS for briefing election denier groups, but not Congress on uses of database on voting records

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) expressed serious concerns that recent changes to and the expanded use of the insufficiently tested Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program could purge eligible citizens from state voter rolls.

In addition to President Trump’s attempts to create obstacles to the ballot box through his anti-voter “election integrity” executive order earlier this year, DHS overhauled the program to verify the citizenship of voters on state voter rolls over false concerns of noncitizen voting. However, the Administration’s political agenda and data quality issues could lead to the erroneous disenfranchisement of eligible voters. The Senators warned that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has not conducted sufficient testing to root out errors and false positives that could make the SAVE program ready for widespread use by states to determine voter eligibility, independent of other databases.

They also criticized DHS’ lack of transparency surrounding the program’s operations and safeguards. More than 9 million records have already been run through the new SAVE program with little to no transparency.

“States and nonpartisan voter advocacy organizations have expressed concerns with using the SAVE program as a standalone tool to determine voter eligibility without adequate safeguards,” wrote the Senators. “In particular, there are concerns that data quality issues may cause state and local officials who rely on the program to receive false positives or incomplete results. This means state and local officials must take on additional burdens to verify SAVE’s results and to ensure that eligible Americans are not denied their right to cast a ballot.”

“Public transparency and assurances that the Department is appropriately protecting citizens’ rights, including privacy, is extremely important,” continued the Senators. “Unfortunately, DHS has not issued any of the routine and required documentation about the program’s operations and safeguards or issued any public notice or notice to Congress. … It has been reported that the Department is apparently preparing to urge all state election officials to use this program but has not provided these officials with any briefings about its capabilities or safeguards.”

The Senators expressed particular concern with the fact that DHS briefed the Election Integrity Network — an organization founded by Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election — on the changes to the SAVE program before providing information to lawmakers or the public. They requested that the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and HSGAC receive any materials shared with external organizations as well as a briefing on these changes to the SAVE program.

Additionally, the Senators reiterated a series of questions for the record that Padilla previously asked USCIS Director nominee Joseph Edlow about the SAVE program. After receiving no substantive response from Edlow, the Senators asked Secretary Noem to respond to the same questions by July 29, 2025.

Senator Padilla led 11 Senators in introducing the Defending America’s Future Elections Act to repeal Trump’s illegal anti-voter executive order and prevent the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive voter registration data and state records. Padilla previously led 14 Democratic Senators in calling on Trump to revoke his illegal anti-voter executive order and issued a statement slamming the order when it was announced.

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

We are seeking information regarding the recent overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, which the Department has apparently undertaken with the goal of expanding the program to verify citizenship of voters on state voter rolls. 

States and nonpartisan voter advocacy organizations have expressed concerns with using the SAVE program as a standalone tool to determine voter eligibility without adequate safeguards. In particular, there are concerns that data quality issues may cause state and local officials who rely on the program to receive false positives or incomplete results. This means state and local officials must take on additional burdens to verify SAVE’s results and to ensure that eligible Americans are not denied their right to cast a ballot. 

Public transparency and assurances that the Department is appropriately protecting citizens’ rights, including privacy, is extremely important. Unfortunately, DHS has not issued any of the routine and required documentation about the program’s operations and safeguards or issued any public notice or notice to Congress. Recent reports indicate that the Department of Homeland Security has run more than 9 million voter records through the new SAVE system. It has been reported that the Department is apparently preparing to urge all state election officials to use this program but has not provided these officials with any briefings about its capabilities or safeguards.

We are also gravely concerned that the Department has not shared information with lawmakers and the public, but did reportedly provide a private advance briefing about the changes to the database to the Election Integrity Network, an organization founded by Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

We request that USCIS brief the staff of the Senate Committees on Rules and Administration and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and provide any other materials that have been shared with external organizations like EIN about the updates to the SAVE program.

Further, Ranking Member Padilla previously posed a series of nomination hearing questions for the record to Joseph Edlow, the nominee to be Director of USCIS about the SAVE program but received no substantive responses in his reply. Given Mr. Edlow’s lack of response and the impact the use of this program will have on the American people, we are once again seeking complete and substantive answers to similar questions from you. As the program continues to be in use, we respectfully seek responses no later than July 29, 2025.

1) What level of access to the SAVE program and the underlying data that feeds into it was provided to staff of the Department of Government Efficiency?

a) What precautions, if any, were taken to ensure the integrity of the SAVE program and the data it accesses were not compromised?

b) In initiating your changes, what if any notice did you provide to the public on data privacy?

c) Will you commit that going forward USCIS will review and monitor all the user access, usage, and other relevant data related by all personnel to the SAVE program to ensure that individuals’ data is not compromised and compliance with the Privacy Act? 

2) USCIS has announced that users can search the program using an individual’s Social Security Number, name, and date of birth. What categories of information are being shared by USCIS with the Social Security Administration, and vice versa?

a) Does USCIS plan to segregate that data from searches that are conducted using a Department-issued identification number?

b) Can you describe the testing USCIS has done to confirm accuracy of this expanded program? What is your accuracy rate? Is it possible to determine what percentage of US citizens could be falsely identified as non-citizens in the SAVE program?

c) How will USCIS work to educate state and local election officials on the potential for falsely identifying individuals as noncitizens or providing inconclusive findings that can occur when using the system in the context of verifying voter eligibility?

3) How does the Department plan to fund the SAVE program now that it is free to government agencies at the federal, state, and local level?

a) What steps will be taken to ensure the program has the infrastructure to support this level of use, including hiring additional staff that may be needed for manual verifications to reconcile contradictory information? 

4) Does the Department have memoranda of agreement (MOA) with each state or local agency that uses the SAVE program?

a) If not, which agencies are using SAVE without an MOA? 

b) Existing MOAs between USCIS and states on voting require remediation steps before a state may remove a voter from their rolls following a SAVE program’s non-confirmation of citizenship. How is USCIS actively seeking to ensure that states are in compliance with this provision of the MOA? 

c) Will you make the MOAs public?

5) Is the expansion of this program covered by the SAVE System of Records Notice published in 2020?

a) If so, please provide a copy of the SAVE MOA or Computer Matching Agreement.

b) If not, please provide any relevant interagency data-sharing or data-matching agreements between the Department and the Social Security Administration.

6) Have you completed an updated Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for the SAVE program. If so, please provide a copy. If not, please address:

a) Data quality requirements and procedures

b) Data retention and information sharing policies

7) Does SAVE retain data from voter rolls? If so:

a) What data elements are saved?

b) Who within the Department has access to any saved data?

c) How long is this data retained?

As Secretary, you have a responsibility to assure the public that the Department is acting appropriately to protect citizens’ rights and personally identifiable data. We look forward to your prompt attention to these important questions.

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