Twenty-one Republican Secretaries of State fired off a letter Monday to newly appointed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, pressing for urgent fixes to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to block non-citizens from voting in U.S. elections.
Led by Alabama’s Wes Allen and co-signed by election chiefs from Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, the coalition slammed the federal system as a disaster that’s failing to safeguard voter rolls.
The February 27 letter congratulates Noem on her January 25 confirmation and urges her to prioritize election integrity alongside border security.
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“Ensuring noncitizens do not vote in our elections is crucial to protecting the integrity of elections in our respective states,” the secretaries wrote, pinpointing SAVE’s bureaucratic inefficiencies—restrictions, old tech, and steep costs—as barriers to detecting ineligible voters. “To vigorously and successfully assume this charge, improvements addressing current limitations within the program are vital,” they added.
Their demands are laser-focused: batch processing to check voters en masse instead of one-by-one grunt work; access to key identifiers like birth dates, Social Security numbers, and driver’s licenses—currently off-limits in SAVE searches; slashing user fees and per-check charges that drain state budgets; clear federal guidance to dodge activist court roadblocks; and real-time alerts when non-citizens who’ve voted apply for naturalization.
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“These enhancements would allow election officials to more readily identify non-citizens attempting to register to vote,” the letter states, noting states often lack the unique DHS numbers SAVE demands but hold other data like Social Security digits.
The push comes as Noem settles into DHS, where she’s already flexed muscle on border security—deploying troops and eyeing mass deportations per Trump’s playbook. With illegal crossings down 95% since January, per CBP, the administration’s now pivoting to voter rolls, a hot-button issue for Republicans claiming lax verification lets non-citizens slip through.
The SAVE program, meant to flag citizenship for entitlements, is their target—a tool they say’s been crippled by red tape.
“Considering election officials are utilizing this system to ensure noncitizens are not actively voting … there should be no cost,” the secretaries argue, decrying SAVE’s fees as a burden on states protecting elections.
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Democrats and civil rights groups counter that non-citizen voting is rare—studies like last year’s Washington Post analysis pegged just 85 cases over two decades—and warn tighter checks could snag legal voters. But the GOP secretaries, emboldened by Trump’s mandate, aren’t flinching.
“Disallowing interference from noncitizens in the elections process is a fundamental role we must champion,” they wrote, offering to meet Noem to hash out details. As Virginia’s 2025 election looms, the clock’s ticking—will SAVE get the overhaul these red-state watchdogs demand, or will bureaucratic inertia hold firm?
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