Trump Administration Expands Data-Mining Tool, Raising Fears of Voter Suppression
A controversial Department of Homeland Security program, originally designed to verify eligibility for public benefits, is being dramatically expanded to include drivers’ license and passport data, fueling concerns it will be used to suppress voter turnout.
The Trump administration is quietly undertaking a significant expansion of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tool historically used to confirm citizenship status for individuals applying for government assistance. Now, the administration intends to leverage this system – and a growing trove of personal data – in what critics fear is a thinly veiled effort to bolster unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.
Since its inception in 1987, SAVE operated by analyzing immigration identification numbers against other federal databases to verify an individual’s citizenship. However, the system’s capabilities have been rapidly evolving. In May, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, added Social Security numbers to the data SAVE could query. DOGE further enhanced SAVE’s capacity by enabling bulk searches, moving away from individual verification checks.
“By sweeping up driver’s license and passport data from across the country,” one expert warned, “they’re laying the groundwork for a system that could easily be misused to make it harder for people to exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot.”
Late last month, DHS announced in a public notice that it plans to incorporate drivers’ license information from all 50 states into SAVE. The federal government could achieve this by directly requesting data from each state or by relying on data compiled by a private law enforcement nonprofit. The agency also indicated that SAVE will soon have access to the US passport database.
According to US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), the division of DHS overseeing SAVE, the expansion aims to more efficiently verify voter eligibility. This initiative stems from Donald Trump’s long-held, and repeatedly debunked, belief that he lost the 2016 popular vote due to three million undocumented immigrants voting in California. “[W]e are reinforcing the principle that America’s elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens,” stated USCIS spokesperson Matthew J. Tragesser.
However, experts express deep concern over SAVE’s transformation from a targeted tool for benefit eligibility to a potentially expansive database capable of researching hundreds of thousands of voters simultaneously. They warn it could be used to spread misinformation about the rarity of non-citizen voting – studies consistently show it is incredibly infrequent – or even to remove eligible voters from state rolls based on flawed data. Responding to inquiries from Mother Jones, USCIS disputed the characterization of SAVE as a database, despite referring to it as such in a 2025 press release.
Using SAVE in this manner, according to Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, a nonprofit government accountability group, amounts to “a vast federal data system of Americans’ most sensitive personal information [created] under the guise of ‘election integrity.’”
“By sweeping up driver’s license and passport data from across the country,” Chukwu added, “they’re laying the groundwork for a system that could easily be misused to make it harder for people to exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot.”
Discussions about expanding SAVE began in the early months of the Trump presidency. In May, USCIS official Brian Broderick briefed the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) on a new initiative to prevent non-citizen voting.
A summary of the conference call, obtained by American Oversight through public records requests, revealed Broderick’s explanation of how the Trump administration planned to expand SAVE by connecting “enumerators”—new methods for verifying citizens—to the system.
If a state wished to verify its entire voter roll for non-citizens, it is unlikely to find many, given the identification requirements for voting and the severe penalties faced by non-citizens attempting to register. However, the expanded SAVE system would allow a secretary of state’s office to check citizenship status using only a driver’s license. As ProPublica reported, this would enable states without Social Security numbers on their voter rolls to utilize SAVE for verification.
Successful expansion hinges on DHS gaining access to drivers’ license databases from all 50 states, which are independently controlled. Broderick acknowledged this would be a complex process, potentially “taking several months to implement.”
Beyond access, the varying data compilation methods across states and the frequent changes in drivers’ license numbers pose challenges. Outdated information could lead to citizens being wrongly flagged as non-citizens by SAVE.
The public notice and the call summary indicate the administration is exploring the use of data from the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, a centralized system used by law enforcement agencies to search drivers’ license data nationwide. This approach would bypass the need for individual negotiations with each state – a topic DHS has already discussed with Texas officials, according to recent reports from ProPublica. A Texas official reportedly expressed “always happy” support for the SAVE program.
While the public notice emphasizes voter eligibility verification, it also states the federal government will offer SAVE access to “appropriate federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, foreign, or international government agencies,” providing free access to state and local agencies.
Documents obtained by American Oversight reveal the Trump administration attempted to share SAVE access with law enforcement groups in Florida last spring. Aram Moghaddassi, formerly of DOGE and now CIO for the Social Security Administration, contacted Florida officials regarding the program.
“We’re working on SAVE access for Florida law enforcement now,” Moghaddassi wrote to an aide to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and law enforcement officials in March 2025. He also requested voter registration data to investigate potential voter fraud, claiming ICE “has several leads on non-citizen voting in Florida.”
Even in its current form, SAVE has incorrectly flagged naturalized citizens as non-citizens. Experts fear adding more datasets will exacerbate these inaccuracies, potentially disproportionately affecting recently naturalized citizens or those undergoing name changes due to marriage.
Election deniers could exploit this inaccurate data to falsely claim widespread fraud, as Trump has repeatedly done. More alarmingly, overzealous election officials might remove eligible voters from the rolls based on flawed SAVE assessments, infringing on their right to vote.
“There’s no transparency, no clear explanation of how this data will be used, and no apparent safeguards against the inevitable errors and discrimination this kind of effort invites,” says Chukwu.
Her concerns are well-founded. In 2012, Florida attempted to remove 2,600 voters – initially 182,000 – alleging non-citizenship based on a comparison of voter rolls and drivers’ license data. Many of those individuals had presented legal non-citizen documentation when obtaining their licenses but had since become citizens. The state’s database contained outdated information, as is often the case.
The bipartisan US Commission on Civil Rights later deemed the comparison method “extremely faulty,” citing numerous citizens wrongly flagged.
The Department of Justice is currently suing eight states to demand access to their full voter rolls to hunt for voter fraud, aiming to create a national voter database that could amplify voter suppression efforts and compromise voter privacy. The documents obtained by American Oversight underscore the potential dangers of combining the expanded SAVE tool with this proposed national database.
“Given this administration’s track record of weaponizing federal agencies to chase baseless voter-fraud conspiracies and challenge voters’ eligibility,” says Chukwu, “the public should be deeply concerned about what’s being built behind closed doors with their tax dollars and the threat it could pose to voters.”
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