Padilla Leads Bill to Repeal Trump’s Anti-Voter Executive Order, Prevent DOGE Access to Voter Data
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and California’s former Secretary of State, led 11 Senators in introducing the Defending America’s Future Elections Act 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 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 illegal and unconstitutional power grab by President Trump is another attempt to make it harder for millions of Americans to vote. It would disproportionately impact women, rural communities, members of our military, and the millions of Americans who don’t have every piece of identification Trump wants to require,” said Senator Padilla. “We also cannot allow Elon Musk and DOGE to wreak havoc on state voter registration lists, threatening to access sensitive voter information and undermine our free and fair elections.”
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.
Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are cosponsoring the legislation.
Padilla recently led 14 Democratic Senators in calling on President Trump to revoke his illegal anti-voter executive order and issued a statement slamming the order after it was issued last week.
Full text of the bill is available here.
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