WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) joined 11 of her Senate colleagues in introducing the Defending America’s Future Elections Act—led by Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA)—to repeal President Trump’s illegal anti-voter executive order and prevent the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive voter registration data and state records. If implemented, the burdensome voter documentation requirements in the executive order would likely disenfranchise millions of eligible American voters.
In addition to repealing Trump’s illegal executive order, the legislation prevents any federal funds from being transferred to or used by DOGE to access state voter registration lists, records concerning voter list maintenance activities, federal databases, or other public or private state records related to federal elections. This provision is important because the order attempts to provide DOGE with subpoena power to pursue this data, which could be used to purge eligible voters from state voter rolls. This bill introduction follows a letter sent by Senator Hirono and her colleagues calling on Trump to revoke his illegal anti-voter executive order.
The brazen effort by President Trump to suppress access to the ballot box through overly burdensome documentation requirements is an attempt to implement the dangerous policies in Congressional Republicans’ Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
Over 21 million voting age Americans lack easy access to the documents required by Trump’s order, including a U.S. passport, birth certificate, or citizenship certificate. Further, nearly half of all American citizens do not have valid passports, and millions more have a legal name that differs from other government-issued documents, including approximately 69 million married women whose birth certificates no longer match their legal name. Additionally, noncitizen voting is already a federal crime and is incredibly rare, with an analysis of Heritage Foundation data identifying only 68 such cases out of nearly 2 billion votes cast over four decades.
The Defending America’s Future Elections Act also makes clear that the President lacks the authority to make the voter documentation changes required in this order as responsibility over administering elections lies with Congress and the states.
In addition to Senators Hirono and Padilla, the bill was cosponsored by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Peter Welch (D-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The full text of the legislation is available here.
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