[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 65 (Tuesday, April 14, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1726-S1731]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SAVE America Act
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, as everybody knows, this last Sunday
night, the world watched the people of Hungary achieve something very,
very powerful. They voted an autocratic leader out of office. After 16
years of ``illiberal'' democracy, after 16 years of centralized power--
crony capitalism, dismantling freedom of the press, and shredding the
rule of law--Hungarian voters overwhelmingly showed up to make their
voices heard with nearly 80 percent of voters casting a ballot.
Meanwhile, here we are in the United States of America--in the U.S.
Senate--continuing to debate a bill that would make it harder for
Americans to make their voices heard in the electoral process.
Here we are, 2 weeks since Donald Trump signed yet another unlawful
executive order. His order would make it harder for eligible Americans
to register to vote, to stay registered to vote, to exercise their
fundamental rights to vote, this time targeting vote-by-mail.
It is absurd; it is unconstitutional; and, most importantly, it is
not going to work. American voters will not be silenced.
So he can try rigging the rules of our elections to desperately try
to hold on to power, but it is not going to work.
He can try to silence the opposition in the media. It is not going to
work.
He can try subverting democracy itself by shrinking the electorate
and limiting how people can vote, but it is not going to work because
if the No Kings marches are any indicator, the American people know
what to do when our rights and our democracy are being attacked.
The American people show up and use every lawful option available to
cast a ballot and make their voices heard. We know this because we have
seen it before--yes, around the world, like in Hungary this last
weekend but also right here in the United States--throughout the course
of our history. And I believe strongly that we are going to see it
again this November.
Now, throughout our Nation's history, we have steadily worked to
expand the right to vote to strengthen our democracy through lawful and
inclusive participation, not by trying to further restrict it or
further deny access to the ballot.
From the fight for women's suffrage to the struggle against Jim Crow
and the Civil Rights Movement overall, each generation has moved us
closer to the promise of a more inclusive democracy.
But President Trump and his Republican enablers want to take us
backward because with inflation up, the cost of living up, prices at
the gas pump up, and our Nation spiraling deeper into an unpopular and
unlawful war in the Middle East, Donald Trump sees the writing on the
wall.
And if you can't rig the rules of the election, making it harder to
register to vote if you are eligible, making it harder to stay
registered to vote or actually harder to cast your ballot, then maybe
there is a chance that he can hold on to power. That is his only hope.
Now, I know, colleagues, that we have been away for a couple of
weeks. It was a State work period last week and the week prior, but
here we are, coming back after a couple of weeks. And let me refresh
our memories as to what is before us: the SAVE Act and what the SAVE
Act specifically does.
First, it requires documents like a passport or an original birth
certificate in order to register to vote, documents that tens of
millions of Americans don't have readily available. A passport is just
one example. Half of American citizens don't have a passport. And so it
becomes a barrier to be able to register to vote, let alone trying to
cast a ballot in November.
The language of the SAVE Act also says that if your name doesn't
match--think about this--there are people who change their names, most
typically when people get married and choose to change their names. All
of a sudden, the name on your ID no longer matches the name on your
birth certificate. So you are going to have to go through some extra
bureaucratic hoops to be able to register and participate in our
democracy.
Then this bill does more. It forces Americans to register, to update
their registration, or to provide proof of citizenship in person if
they have been falsely flagged as ineligible, meaning you are going to
have to take some time off from work. And maybe the county elections
office is near where you live or work or maybe it is quite the
distance, but that burden is now on you to continue exercising your
fundamental right to vote.
This bill also requires States to turn over their sensitive voter
rolls to the Department of Homeland Security. Why? The Department of
Homeland Security has nothing to do with election administration. But
under this bill, they will run the names and voter information from the
States through databases that we already know are flawed and already
falsely flag eligible American voters as potential noncitizens.
And when they do that, DHS then communicates to the States orders to
remove them from the rolls. This isn't speculation. This is already
happening in States that have voluntarily begun this exercise with DHS.
And don't forget, colleagues, the Republican bill attacks vote-by-
mail, the same vote-by-mail that 48 million Americans relied on in the
last election, the same vote-by-mail that Donald Trump himself
repeatedly has utilized as an option to cast his ballot, including a
few weeks ago in a special election in Florida.
So Donald Trump thinks voting by mail is safe and secure enough for
him but not for the American people? What is with that hypocrisy?
So, in other words--again, this is a refresher; this is a reminder--
the SAFE Act is a bill that makes it harder to register to vote, harder
to stay registered to vote, and harder to cast your ballot.
But we know what the goal is. To quote the Legal Defense Fund, which
has spoken up on this bill, this is about ``shrinking the electorate
and controlling who can vote in America.''
You can try to describe it some other way. You can try to
characterize it some other way. But that is the bottom line. But with
this bill stalling here in the Senate, President Trump is now trying to
take matters into his own hands once again.
His aim is to--his words, not mine--``take over elections'' with this
most recent illegal Executive order that I just mentioned. He wants to
force States to rely on the Federal list of eligible voters created by
the Department of Homeland Security, using those same flawed databases.
And he wants States to hand over not just the voter rolls, now,
actual authority for absentee and mail voting to the Trump
administration. And if they don't, the U.S. Postal Service won't
deliver voters' absentee ballots? That is outrageous.
Let me say that again. If States don't follow Donald Trump's
directives, ballots will go undelivered, meaning lawful votes cast
legally by U.S. citizens will not be counted.
This order is unconstitutional; it is illegal; and it will not stand.
As if that wasn't bad enough, this order goes further. This order
threatens criminal penalties for election officials to mail carriers
just for doing their job.
Colleagues, the Postal Service is an independent agency, and it is
independent for that reason. So they cannot be subject to this
Executive order.
The Postal Service is required to deliver all mail, period--including
and especially election mail, like mail ballots.
The Constitution is crystal clear about who runs our elections. In
case you were wondering where the authority argument comes from, read
the Constitution. It is simple: States administer elections, not the
President. Congress can have a say in the time,
[[Page S1727]]
manner, and way elections happen, but it is Congress, the legislative
branch, not the President, not the executive branch.
Like the SAVE America Act, this Executive order isn't about securing
elections; it is about controlling who gets to participate in them. It
is a political move, and it is a power play, and it is based on a false
premise. Voting by mail is, indeed, safe. It is, indeed, secure. It is
a deeply American tradition that dates back not just a few years or a
couple of decades but for well over a century.
Vote-by-mail was used by both Pennsylvania and New Jersey during the
War of 1812. Union soldiers voted by mail throughout the Civil War
because even in times of war, we should not have our women and men in
the armed services sacrifice their fundamental right to vote. During
World War II, Japanese Americans held in internment camps voted
absentee in the 1942 and 1944 elections.
In 1978, California--my home State of California--became the first
State in the Nation to allow no-excuse absentee voting to help more
citizens vote securely and vote conveniently. Flash-forward to today.
Now 28 States allow no-excuse absentee voting, plus an additional 8
States that have universal mail voting. You add that up, that is a
supermajority of the country. Even American astronauts have been able
to vote by mail from the International Space Station since 1997.
Yet, despite the years of experience, despite the years of success,
despite the years of secure mail-in voting, we are seeing relentless
attacks against it by Donald Trump and his Republican allies in
Congress because expanding access to the ballot box does not serve
those who want to limit participation.
But here is what we all need to remember: You can bring a bill
designed to suppress the vote. You can keep signing illegal Executive
orders. You cannot and will not stop the American people from voting.
You cannot stop them from speaking up, and you cannot turn back the
clock on the progress this country has made.
Democrats--we are going to continue to fight voter suppression bills
like this one here in Congress no matter how long it takes, and leaders
across the country will continue to challenge illegal and
unconstitutional orders in the courts. But ultimately the most powerful
response will come from the American people themselves this fall at the
ballot box because Americans don't sit back or stay at home when their
rights are threatened; Americans show up, Americans speak out, and
Americans vote. And you can be sure they are going to do so again this
November.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, the right to vote is the very bedrock of
our American democracy. Two hundred fifty years ago, our Founders set
out to create a nation governed by the people. At the time, they were
renouncing a monarch who they called a tyrant for his overreaching
actions.
The new government the Founders created in response, which has
endured for 2\1/2\ centuries, was built upon entirely enshrining the
fundamental principle that power lies with the people, and they
exercised that power to hold their leaders accountable through their
vote.
Two weeks ago, President Trump signed a sweeping and unconstitutional
Executive order that would place the most significant restrictions to
the right to vote in recent memory. There is no question this order is
an attack on the right to vote, and it goes against the very heart of
the free and fair elections that make our Nation a strong democratic
Republic.
To preserve the power of the people to determine who their leaders
are, our Constitution gives States the power to conduct elections.
There is no authority for the President or the executive branch to make
sweeping changes to our elections. The Founders designed it that way
precisely to ensure that no single leader--especially one as powerful
as a President--could hold sway over the outcome of those elections.
To be clear, in our country, the voters choose their leaders. Leaders
do not have the power to choose their voters. But that is exactly--that
is exactly--what President Trump is trying to do with his Executive
order and what our Republican colleagues are trying to do by passing
the SAVE Act.
Under this Executive order, President Trump is illegally co-opting
the Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security to ensure
that he can pick and choose who gets to vote. It is all done under the
guise of protecting the security of our elections, under the guise that
the 2020 election was stolen.
Well, Mr. President, the facts simply do not back that up. In fact,
there is no evidence--no evidence--that election fraud or noncitizen
voting is a widespread problem in our elections. And in the very few
cases that we have, they are effectively prosecuted, and they should
be.
But the President and his allies want to use the Department of
Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to create a
new ``State Citizenship List'' that will determine who is eligible to
vote in our election. Every State already determines whether people who
register are actually eligible to vote.
To ask Federal Agencies that have no election administration
responsibilities to do this is not only against the law, it risks
removing eligible voters from the voter rolls. The Department of
Homeland Security has already admitted that the Federal data sources
that would be used to compile these new State Citizenship Lists, such
as the outdated Social Security records, are absolutely riddled with
inaccuracies. If that data is applied to voting, it risks American
citizens being incorrectly purged from voter rolls and denied their
constitutional right to vote.
The President's Executive order also weaponizes the Postal Service.
It forces them to play a key role in elections as a regulator of
absentee ballots.
The reason the Postal Service is one of our Nation's most trusted
institutions is because it is completely neutral. In fact, Congress
intentionally created the Postal Service to be an independent
establishment and gave the postal power to the Board of Governors. The
Postal Service doesn't care which politicians you may support. Its only
priority is to deliver the mail to every community in the country.
The President is now trying to corrupt--trying to corrupt--this
mission. If the President is successful in forcing the Postal Service
to play a role in running elections, he will completely erode the trust
of this storied institution.
What is truly crazy about the President's Executive order is that the
Postal Service regularly takes extraordinary measures to ensure that
election mail is actually delivered on time regardless of partisan
politics. In fact, mail-in voting is a safe and secure way for voters
to participate in our democracy. Millions of Americans, including
President Trump, use this method to exercise their right to vote. And
the Postal Service record stands for itself. Last election, they
delivered over 99 million ballots, and 97 percent were delivered within
just 3 days.
American elections have a long history of being free, fair, and
secure, and vote-by-mail is a key part of ensuring that more Americans
can participate in our democracy.
The President's Executive order and the SAVE Act Republicans are
trying to pass through Congress are basically nothing more than an
effort to undermine the security and the integrity of our electoral
process.
I urge my colleagues and every American to stand up to this illegal
power grab and help protect the core values that have always made our
Nation great.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let's see if we all agree on something.
People should not be allowed to vote in elections illegally. Is that a
radical idea? I think it is a basic idea. It ought to be against the
law for somebody who is not legal to try to vote in America. It is. It
is a felony. Well, how often does this happen that people who are
ineligible to vote--like immigrants--try to actually vote? Well, let's
think of this possibility.
In a 20-year period of time, we did a survey of all the people who
were caught trying to vote illegally in the United States. Now, keep in
mind that in each election cycle, 25 to 50 million
[[Page S1728]]
Americans registered to vote. So in a 20-year period of time, think
about all of the possibilities of people who are registering to vote
and how many were actually illegal when trying to register to vote. How
many do you think? Seven million, right? No. Seven hundred thousand?
No. Seventy thousand? No. Seven hundred? No.
In a 20-year period of time, 77 people in America who are ineligible
tried to vote--77 out of millions who are being registered every
election cycle. So the Republicans said that is enough--77 is enough.
Let's make everybody in America reregister--everybody. We will catch
those 77 or anybody who looks like one.
You think to yourself: Why are you doing this to me? I have been
legally voting in America for decades and nobody has questioned it, nor
should they. Why do I have to go through a registration? Well, that's
because we shouldn't have anybody illegal voting. I agree we shouldn't.
But with 77 out of millions, OK, you want to reregister to vote? The
bill before us says there is a simple process you need to follow. You
have to show identification.
Well, that is easy. I just got on a flight the other day, and I had
to show my ID. Everybody shows their ID. But what ID did you show? Your
driver's license, right? That is what I use. I have got one of those
upgraded driver's licenses we are all supposed to have that proves my
identity. They accept it, put me on an airplane. Nobody says: He is
really a terrorist. He showed me his driver's license.
But their bill doesn't include a driver's license. If you want to
prove your identity, you have to show a passport. That is one way to do
it. Well, how many people in America have a passport? About half. About
half do. And if you don't have a passport and you want to get one just
in time for the election, get busy.
The first thing you need to do is be prepared to write a check for
$165 for your passport and then you go through the process. It may only
be 4 weeks, but it may be longer depending on how much you want to pay.
That is one way that you can prove your identity.
The other way is pretty simple--produce your birth certificate. Got
one handy? What name does it show on there? For a lot of ladies, it
shows their birth name--what their family name was when they were born.
They have since gotten married. They may have a hyphenated last name.
The names don't match up, so birth certificates don't work out that
well.
Why are we going through this hassle? Seventy-seven people tried to
vote who shouldn't have in 20 years. That isn't what it is really
about. I used to work for a fellow in politics who used to say: For
every political issue, there is a good reason and a real reason. A good
reason is to stop fraud in voting. The real reason: turn this election
upside down in November. And why do they want to turn it upside down?
Because this President thinks he is going to lose.
Why would he think he is going to lose? He might have been listening
to the ``Hungarian Rhapsody'' over the weekend; and if he was, the
people of Hungary threw out Viktor Orban and put in the person who is
on the left. Despite the campaigning of Vice President Vance and the
support of President Trump, the rightwing candidate lost--
overwhelmingly lost in Hungary. The fear is the President's party is
going to lose in November. The voters have the ultimate decision.
The point I am getting to is there are so many things we could be
working on now, but to have Americans reregister to vote with
questionable identification services accepted, with people writing out
a $165 check so that they have a passport so that they can vote in
November, this is all unnecessary and overdone. What we are telling you
today is, there are more important things for us to worry about in
America.
First and foremost, let's get these gasoline prices down. Filled your
tank recently? Mr. President, $4 a gallon, $5 a gallon? In Illinois,
you run into both. It means that families are going to put a lot more
money into the tank than they did before because of this President's
undeclared war--that is what we are facing.
If this Chamber continues to debate this misguided SAVE America Act,
we also must reconcile with the President's recently signed Executive
order--listen to this--an unlawful, unprecedented attempt to meddle in
elections under the banner of integrity. Why? Because it is a blatant
attempt by President Trump to exceed his constitutional authority by
directing the administration to determine the eligibility of American
citizens to vote. This is a reckless solution to a problem that doesn't
exist. Mr. President, 77 voters over 20 years.
This Executive order shouldn't come as a surprise. As I mentioned,
the President has long sought to sow distrust in the integrity of our
elections. Last month--listen to this--the President wrote, and I am
quoting him now:
Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating.
Hmm. Interesting. Public records recently revealed the President
himself voted by mail--What? I thought it meant cheating--in a recent
special election for a State house district that includes Mar-a-Lago.
So according to President Trump, vote-by-mail is cheating when the
nurse who is working strict work hours or the elderly person with
mobility issues uses it, but it is totally fine when he himself
personally uses it to vote. The hypocrisy of this White House knows no
bounds.
There are serious concerns that the processes and systems that
Federal Agencies would employ to enforce the President's Executive
order are filled with errors and produce unintended consequences.
Under this order the Department of Homeland Security--this is the
President's Executive order--the Department of Homeland Security and
Social Security Administration would be responsible for determining a
voter's citizenship status, empowering them at the Federal level to
create a list of approved voters who may receive mail-in ballots;
however, nearly a quarter of the Social Security Administration records
lack any citizenship information.
They haven't thought this through. The same bad data already used by
DHS's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements--or SAVE Program--
which has repeatedly misidentified American citizens as noncitizens.
They make mistakes; they question whether you can vote. And people who
are doing this legally and accurately shouldn't have to put up with it.
So they basically tested the President's SAVE Program to see how many
people were actually not voting properly. They went to Boone County,
MO. More than half of the voters that were flagged as ineligible turned
out to be American citizens. The system doesn't work.
The President's Executive order also requires the Postal Service to
send mail-in ballots only to the administration's approved list of
voters. So if you want to use a mail-in ballot--and more than half the
people in Illinois do--you have got to pass muster and approval by the
President first; your name has to clear the list. As a result, when
eligible voters are misidentified as noncitizens, they will not receive
a ballot to vote by mail and will be purged from the voter rolls
essentially blocking access to the ballot.
The point I am getting to is this: This right to vote that we have in
the United States is a key to our democracy. People died to give us
this chance to be American citizens who have the right to vote and make
up our minds about who would be sitting in this chair or that chair or
the other chair. That is your decision, nobody else's. This President
should not be able to take it away from you or complicate your life to
the point where you have to start dreaming up identification services
to go and reregister to vote. That is just wrong.
We are only a few months away from this election. We can't let this
happen. The reason we are debating this issue on the floor today is to
make sure that they don't hurry and pass this provision without
thinking it through. Millions of people's opportunity to vote is at
stake.
I come to the floor today to say: If you can't protect the right of
Americans to vote however they want to vote in their conscience, then
you have forgotten the very basics of our democracy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today alongside my colleagues to
speak
[[Page S1729]]
out against an attack on a fundamental right of every American
citizen--the right to vote. I want to thank Senator Padilla, the
ranking member of the Rules Committee, for leading this important
effort.
The deceptively named SAVE America Act is all about sowing doubt in
our elections and making it harder for American citizens to register
and to vote. It is all part of an effort by the administration to pick
who votes rather than allowing voters to pick who wins.
Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that the SAVE Act was important
``to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right
leaders.''
President Trump endorsed the SAVE Act because it will ``guarantee the
midterms.'' He said that Republicans ``should take over the voting in
at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.''
Steve Bannon agreed that, in his words, ``President Trump has to
nationalize the election. You've got to put--not just, I think, ICE--
you've got to call up the 82nd and the 101st Airborne. . . . You've got
to get around every poll.''
As I will explain, the SAVE Act is precisely the vehicle that Trump,
Noem, Bannon, and others will use to trample the Constitution's
provisions that States run elections and sow doubt about this fall's
election result.
The SAVE Act isn't about election integrity. It is yet another power
grab by President Trump. It is no different from him begging the
Republican secretary of state in Georgia to find votes in 2020 or
failing to act when a violent mob invaded the Capitol on January 6.
The President is interested in one thing and one thing only--himself.
Look no further than putting his name on the Kennedy Center, tearing
down part of the White House, or adding his face and signature to our
currency. It is always about his ability to stay and seize more power,
and the SAVE Act is no different.
Here is how the SAVE Act is another power grab for President Trump.
First, under the guise of solving the illusory problem of noncitizen
voting, the SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to
register to vote. That means presenting your birth certificate and a
government-issued photo ID in person at the time you register.
Well, many people, such as married women, do not have a birth
certificate that currently matches their name or cannot find their
birth certificate. Nationwide, there are 69 million married women who
have changed their name, and 21 million people don't have ready access
to a passport or a birth certificate. I do not think the Federal
Government should be in the business of making it harder for these
people to vote.
Second, it would require government-issued photo ID to vote in
person. Now, I represent a State that requires voter ID. Rhode Island
has taken a sensible approach. But the list of acceptable forms of ID
to vote under the SAVE Act would be much narrower than what is required
under Rhode Island law.
Every State has developed its own rules for verifying eligibility
status because that is what the Constitution directs. I am opposed to
the Federal Government telling Rhode Island what to do.
Third, it would require anyone voting by mail to also include a
photocopy of their ID, adding more items to a mail ballot process,
particularly for American citizens who are already registered. It will
only make it harder to process the ballots in an accurate and timely
fashion.
It also represents an invasion of privacy because election officials
will see actual copies of Americans' most sensitive documents,
containing their personal information, in a way that has never happened
before.
We all treasure the secret ballot, which allows people to go into the
polling place, register their approval or disapproval, but not have it
identified with them unless they choose. And this bill will upset that
tradition and that safeguard on democracy.
Fourth, it would require Rhode Island to turn over its voter rolls to
the Federal Government, including your Social Security number and other
private information. This is especially insidious.
It is an unconstitutional intrusion into Rhode Island's authority to
determine the time, place, and manner of elections under article I,
section 4 of the Constitution. And depending on how President Trump
decides to implement this provision, he could require that some people
reregister before the 2026 election, and he might just pick out blue
States or swing States. But here is the key point: The SAVE Act gives
Donald Trump the power to decide who has to reregister and who gets to
vote.
And, fifth, it would place an unfunded mandate on Rhode Island
taxpayers to pay for new voter forms and signage, as well as
advertising to alert voters to the dizzying and complex array of Trump-
mandated restrictions on their fundamental right to vote.
I note that my Republican colleagues used to be opposed to the
Federal Government commandeering State officials and micromanaging
their affairs.
In the New York v. United States case before the Supreme Court,
Justice O'Connor wrote that, in her words, ``even where Congress has
the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or
prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the
States to require or prohibit those acts.'' This case was decided in
1992 and overturned Federal mandates for States to dispose of nuclear
waste.
And in the Supreme Court case of Printz v. United States, Justice
Scalia took this anti-commandeering principle even further by writing:
We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States
to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. . . .
Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting
the State's officers directly. The Federal Government may
neither issue directives requiring the States to address
particular problems, nor command the States' officers . . .
to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. . . .
Such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our
constitutional system of dual sovereignty.
This case was decided in 1997 and overturned Federal mandates to
States to conduct background checks on firearm purchases.
So based on the logic of the SAVE Act, it is fine under the
Constitution for State officials to be compelled to help President
Trump avoid the accountability that a Democratic Senate or House might
bring after November, but State officials cannot be compelled to help
clean up nuclear waste or make sure that violent felons don't buy
firearms. That doesn't make much sense to me, and I hope my colleagues
feel the same way.
Now, this legislation has not yet been passed through the Senate
because I think it lacks votes on both sides of the aisle. Many of my
colleagues know this is bad policy, know that it is unconstitutional,
and know that it would disenfranchise millions of their own voters,
particularly rural voters. They know that the SAVE Act would cause
chaos because it is effective immediately.
The 2026 elections are already underway. Several States, like Texas,
have already had primary elections. And all of my Republican colleagues
were elected under the State-run election system that this bill would
decimate. But today, because Trump has said so, they are claiming that
this very system is rigged and must be completely overhauled, with
immediate effect.
President Trump realizes the SAVE Act doesn't have the votes to
become law, so he is running his usual playbook to try and implement
pieces of this legislation in a lawless and haphazard manner.
First, Trump's Department of Justice has tried to amass private and
personal voter roll data from nearly every single State. It has sued 30
States plus the District of Columbia for refusing to comply with those
demands. I am proud that my State of Rhode Island is among them. But
DOJ is not fighting fairly in court. According to reporting by WIRED
Magazine, DOJ lawyers misled the Federal judge in Rhode Island
overseeing this case about how the Federal Government is using this
data. The lead DOJ lawyer initially told the judge that the Federal
Government had not conducted any analysis on that data. But 2 weeks
ago, DOJ filed a brief, in their words, ``to correct and clarify the
record that preliminary internal data analysis of the nonpublic voter
registration data has begun.''
They are using sophisticated cyber and AI tools to generate the list
of people, I believe, who they think should not vote. That is very
startling and
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disturbing. DOJ is already taking incredibly sensitive data--driver's
license numbers, dates of birth, even Social Security numbers--and
gearing up to remove people from the rolls. They are doing this even
though the SAVE Act is not even the law.
And, mind you, the lawyers at DOJ who are doing this are not career
prosecutors who do things by the book. They are being led by Eric Neff,
a partisan loyalist to Donald Trump, a member of the MAGA movement, who
helped Trump perpetuate the Big Lie that the 2020 elections were
stolen. And that is exactly what they are preparing to do for 2026 and
2028.
Second, Trump has signed an Executive order to make it virtually
impossible to vote by mail. He is trying to demand that the Postal
Service deny a mail ballot from any voter who is not preapproved by his
administration. That is a gross violation of States' constitutional
authority to run elections, and that is an illegal and unfunded mandate
for the Postal Service, which is already in deep financial trouble and
has not been a part of the Federal Government since Richard Nixon was
President.
You can bet that, under Trump's direction, the Postal Service, which
is supposed to do the ministerial function of collecting and delivering
the mail, will be conscripted to support his power grab.
I am very proud to be here today, joined by my colleagues, in
sounding the alarm about this bill. We want to help our fellow citizens
participate in our elections because only their participation will
ensure that the government is truly accountable to the people it
represents.
I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will understand
that and oppose these efforts to suppress the right to vote, which is a
fundamental right of the people and has been protected by generations
of American men and women wearing the uniform in the United States. And
not only do we dishonor the Constitution through this bill; in my view,
we dishonor their sacrifice.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Donald Trump has been trying for quite some
time to coerce the States into handing over their voter lists since his
first term. That is so he and Stephen Miller can create a list of
people they do and, most importantly, don't want to have voting in
Federal elections. It would allow Trump to block his political enemies.
His Executive order is a desperate attempt by a failing President to
cling to power by taking control over how States run their elections,
and the reason I am here is its effect on States like Oregon that rely
on vote-by-mail.
I am the country's first U.S. Senator elected completely by mail, and
I can tell you the people of my State understand better than anyone
that vote-by-mail is safe, easy, and effective. We have been doing it
for over 30 years. Oregon is one of nine States that currently conducts
elections by mail.
Trump talks a big game about vote-by-mail being riddled with fraud.
As usual, he exists in his own reality. States that use mail-in voting
experience fewer instances of voter fraud than any other system. A
review of the vote-by-mail system by Oregon's Legislative Fiscal Office
found that, from 2000 to 2019, there were approximately 61 million
ballots cast, and, of those, 38 criminal convictions were obtained for
fraud, amounting to a 0.00006 percent fraud rate.
So let's be clear. First of all, this Executive order is
unconstitutional. The Constitution explicitly grants States the power
to establish the times, places, and manner of elections, including
creating and managing voter lists. That power does not rest with the
President.
The State of Kansas passed a similar law that was struck down by the
courts because it illegally blocked 31,000 eligible voters from
registering to vote.
Second, this Executive order is illegal. The creation of a national
voter database would give the Trump administration unprecedented access
to private voter data. Forcing the Social Security office to share
private voter data with another Agency is a clear violation of the
Privacy Act.
When news dropped about the Executive order, I immediately wrote to
Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, demanding more
information about this data-sharing agreement. This would force Social
Security employees to put aside their real jobs--helping seniors and
Americans navigate Social Security benefits--and, instead, they would
have to execute Trump's voting witch hunt.
Americans are already being forced to endure long waits to receive
their hard-earned benefits because of Trump's intentional mismanagement
of the Agency. Under the order, they would have to wait even longer
because the Agency is too busy doing Trump's illegal, unconstitutional,
and unethical bidding.
From day one of his Presidency, Donald Trump has shown as much
consideration for the personal privacy of the American people as a bull
in a china shop. He essentially handed over the keys to the kingdom
when he gave Elon Musk and DOGE unfettered access to the government's
internal data systems. We still don't know who ended up having access
to the data. Now he wants to do it again--this time, to create a
database of voters that allows him to pick and choose who can vote.
What he would be doing is weaponizing a fundamental democratic right--
the right to vote--and potentially target his enemies.
Given this administration's track record of mishandling and
weaponizing Americans' personal information and data, we can be sure
this is a blueprint for who-knows-what with respect to chilling abuses
by the Trump administration. There is no legitimate justification for a
provision like this.
Anybody who facilitates Donald Trump's directive to create a voter
database would be a willing and blatant voter suppressor. They would be
as culpable in this travesty as Donald Trump.
Vote-by-mail makes it possible for millions of Americans to make
their voices heard. Stephen Miller would tell you that if you can't
vote by mail, you can vote another way. That will have drastic
consequences for millions of rural Americans, seniors, and people with
disabilities. They would be shut out--no voice in our democracy.
An elderly woman living in Eastern Oregon would be forced to drive
for hours to the nearest election office to cast a vote. If she doesn't
have a car or if she can no longer drive, she would have to find a
neighbor or a friend to drive her.
If your mom lived in a nursing home, she wouldn't be able to cast her
ballot by mail. You would be forced to find time in between running
your kids to soccer and holding down a full-time job to get her to a
polling place.
This is exactly what Donald Trump hates about vote-by-mail: It
encourages voter participation. It makes it easier for people to be
heard, and it makes it harder for Trump to rig elections in his favor.
He is terrified of vote-by-mail because, if he doesn't suppress votes,
he knows he can't win. It protects the constitutional right to vote.
From his postmarking rule changes to consolidating the Postal
Service, shutting down mail processing facilities, and now this, he is
in the spaghetti-throwing phase of his midterm election strategy. He
knows his platform of pardoning pedophiles and making life more
expensive is going to lose him the midterms. Instead of trying to lower
costs and improve life for ordinary families, he is hell-bent on making
it harder for people to vote.
His Presidency is failing, and the Republican platform becomes more
unpopular by the day. That is why they are making such a desperate
attempt to get the SAVE Act passed before November. Republicans know
they don't have the support in the Congress--certainly not to overhaul
Federal elections and enact a voter suppression bill. They are wasting
our time debating it because not one of them--not one--has the backbone
to stand up to Donald Trump.
Oregonians will be damned if we let Donald Trump do away with how we
conduct our voting so Donald Trump could rig another election.
I will fight to make sure Trump's election-rigging scheme dies the
death it so richly deserves on the floor of the Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). The majority leader.
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