A federal whistleblower has alleged that agents conducting the Trump administration’s Unlawful Voter Initiative may have committed thousands of violations of state law while searching voter registration databases for noncitizens, according to a report made public Monday by Sens. Alex Padilla and Chuck Schumer.
The whistleblower, represented by the nonprofit Democracy Defenders Fund, delivered the account to Padilla last week. The report describes agents entering personally identifiable information into public-facing state voter websites in a way that may require them to falsely claim they are the registered voter or have that voter’s explicit permission to access the record.
“Employees may be required to use the PII to make false attestations that they are the voter or are acting with the voter’s express authorization, in order to access these individual voters’ records,” the report states. Virginia is among the states that require such an attestation when someone queries its voter rolls. The whistleblower contends that headquarters leadership directed what could amount to thousands of such violations.
DHS began surging personnel into the initiative last month. Training materials acknowledged that the underlying voter data contains inconsistent information, yet each officer was assigned a quota of at least 40 subjects per day, with no more than twelve minutes allotted per subject to determine citizenship status. The Office of Chief Counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued guidance permitting agents to use state voter websites for investigative purposes.
Padilla and Schumer sent a joint letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow demanding the program be halted. “DHS must not allow unreliable federal data or rushed investigations to interfere with Americans’ right to vote or the administration of the November elections,” the two senators wrote. Previous government audits have found noncitizen voting to be exceedingly rare. DHS has not publicly responded to the allegations.
Category: Republic
Tags: Immigration, Department of Homeland Security, Alex Padilla, Elections