Trump Administration Uses Executive Order 14399 to Let Homeland Security Verify Voters

(UNITED STATES) — The Trump administration approved a plan on June 5, 2026, to check voters’ citizenship by matching state registration records against federal databases held by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.

Officials cast the move as the main implementation step for Executive Order 14399, signed on March 31, 2026, which directs federal agencies to build a broader voter citizenship verification system ahead of the 2026 Midterm Elections.

DHS and USCIS have framed the plan as an election security measure. Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said on April 22, 2026, “The SAVE program is a critical tool for state and local governments to safeguard the integrity of elections across the country. President Trump has been unequivocal: Nothing is more fundamental than the integrity and security of our elections. Our elections belong to American citizens, not foreign citizens.”

Under the plan, the administration has expanded the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, beyond its original use in benefit eligibility checks. The updated system now draws on Social Security Administration records and State Department passport records to conduct mass citizenship verification.

State election officials can submit entire statewide voter registration lists, rather than checking one name at a time. A new federal citizenship data portal will give state officials direct access to consolidated records, and the administration said in a June 5 court filing that the systems are expected to be fully operational by June 30, 2026.

The plan also directs the U.S. Postal Service to develop rules within 120 days so mail-in ballots go only to verified citizens. Those rules would rely on unique “secure ballot envelope identifiers,” described in the plan as barcodes.

At least 67 million voter registrations, mostly from Republican-led states, have already moved through a preliminary version of the program. That early participation gives the administration a large testing base before the full system comes online.

The White House laid out its legal rationale in Executive Order 14399. “The right to vote in Federal elections is reserved exclusively for citizens of the United States under the Constitution and Federal law. Federal statutes explicitly prohibit non-citizens from registering to vote or voting. The Federal Government has an unavoidable duty. to enforce Federal law, which includes preventing violations of Federal criminal law and maintaining public confidence in election outcomes,” the order says.

The order and the rollout push federal authority into a part of election administration that states have traditionally controlled. Voter roll maintenance has long been handled by state and local officials, but the administration says Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, which requires the United States to guarantee a republican form of government, supports a larger federal role.

The push followed a 76-day partial DHS shutdown that ended on April 30, 2026 and centered on funding for immigration enforcement. The voter verification system now sits inside a wider Trump administration policy agenda that officials have tied to “Making America Safe Again.”

USCIS described the agency’s role in a fact sheet issued on February 2, 2026. “SAVE is an effective tool that registered agencies, such as State divisions of elections, can use to verify U.S. citizenship for voter registration, voter list maintenance, or oversight of these processes (collectively, ‘voter verification’).”

DHS repeated that message in an April 22, 2026 press release that accompanied the program’s expansion. That announcement linked the enlarged SAVE system to voter list checks and election oversight, signaling the administration’s intent weeks before Friday’s approval.

Opponents say the database approach carries a high risk of false positives. In Boone County, Missouri, more than 50% of voters flagged as non-citizens by the system were later confirmed to be eligible naturalized citizens.

Newly naturalized citizens face the greatest risk of an incorrect match because federal records do not always update their status quickly. That “naturalization lag” can leave a citizen listed as a permanent resident in one system while state officials are reviewing voter rolls.

Those mismatches matter more in states that give flagged voters little time to respond. Some states allow as little as 30 days for a person to prove citizenship before election officials remove that voter from the rolls.

Civil rights groups say that timetable can disenfranchise eligible voters who cannot clear up a database error fast enough. Multiple lawsuits filed by the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and the Campaign Legal Center argue that the plan violates the National Voter Registration Act and the Privacy Act of 1974.

The litigation now runs alongside the federal buildout, with the administration pressing ahead toward its June 30, 2026 operating target while challengers try to stop or narrow the program. By the time state officials prepare voter rolls for the 2026 Midterm Elections, the new system is set to test how far Washington can reach into election machinery that states have long treated as their own.