DHS Data Collection Fuels Voter Fraud Concerns
Recent documents obtained by American Oversight reveal a concerted effort by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to gather driver’s license data as part of a voter fraud inquiry, raising alarms among civil rights advocates and election experts. The initiative centers around the Systematic Alien Verification for Equities (SAVE) program, a database used to verify immigration status.
In early 2025,DHS official Lilian Moghaddassi requested voter registration data from Florida,citing “several leads on non-citizen voting” and a desire to “work with Florida to investigate and prosecute these cases.” Moghaddassi’s contact facts was also shared with officials in Texas.
The expansion of SAVE’s datasets is particularly concerning given its history of inaccuracies. The Brennan Center for Justice has documented instances where SAVE has “incorrectly flagged” naturalized citizens as non-citizens. Experts fear adding more data will exacerbate these errors, potentially impacting recently naturalized citizens and individuals like newly married women undergoing name changes.
Critics warn that inaccurate SAVE data could be exploited to falsely claim widespread voter fraud, echoing previous assertions made by former President Trump. More instantly, they fear election officials might wrongly remove eligible voters from the rolls based on flawed SAVE assessments, effectively disenfranchising them.
“There’s no clarity, no clear explanation of how this data will be used, and no apparent safeguards against the unavoidable errors and discrimination this kind of effort invites,” stated Kristen Chukwu, highlighting the lack of oversight.
Concerns are rooted in past instances of flawed voter roll purges. In 2012, Florida attempted to remove 2,600 voters (originally from a list of 182,000) from the rolls, alleging non-citizenship based on a comparison with driver’s license data. The majority of those targeted were people of color. The US Commission on Civil Rights later deemed the comparison method “extremely faulty,” noting that many individuals had become citizens after initially presenting non-citizen documentation for driver’s licenses, resulting in outdated database information.
This DHS effort coincides with a broader push by the Department of Justice to access full voter rolls from eight states – seven led by Democrats - with the goal of creating a national voter database. This database, as reported by The New York times, could amplify voter suppression efforts, compromise voter privacy, and become vulnerable to cyberattacks.
“Given this management’s track record of weaponizing federal agencies to chase baseless voter-fraud conspiracies and challenge voters’ eligibility,” Chukwu warned, “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.”
