[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 205 (Monday, December 8, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S8521]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 VOTING

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in early November, the U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration Service announced improvements to their voter 
verification system. Now, States can use a program named the Systematic 
Alien Verification for Entitlements to verify that only citizens are 
voting in the Federal elections. This is welcome news.
  So here is why it is welcome news: During the 2024 election, Iowa's 
election official, Secretary of State Paul Pate, sought confirmation of 
citizenship status for 2,176 voters that, based on driver motor vehicle 
records, may have been noncitizens.
  The Biden-Harris administration refused--yes, refused--to give 
Secretary Pate the information he needed to confirm whether these 2,176 
voters were eligible to vote, which kind of proves that the previous 
administration was not interested in verifying citizenship for voting.
  Now that the Trump administration has allowed Secretary Pate access 
to the SAVE Program, we know that 277 people from Iowa's 2024 voter 
registration list were noncitizens. In other words, potentially, 277 
people could have voted if they wanted to, and I will tell you that 
some did.
  While the Biden-Harris administration refused to verify the 
citizenship of these voters, 40 noncitizens attempted to vote in Iowa. 
Five of those attempts were caught before the ballots were counted, but 
35 unlawful ballots were actually tallied.
  Thanks to President Trump's Executive order concerning election 
integrity and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's needed 
upgrades to the SAVE system, other States can avoid the uncertainty 
that Iowa had in last year's election, and the voters in those States 
can have peace of mind that noncitizens won't be voting because when 
noncitizens vote, it reduces the value of every legal vote.
  I would encourage these States to participate in this program. I want 
to thank the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service for their 
improvements to the SAVE Program, and I also want to thank Iowa's 
Secretary of State Paul Pate for his commitment to election integrity 
and the Trump administration for providing Iowa the information needed 
to confirm the citizenship of its voters.
  I yield the floor.

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