1. United States
  2. Maine
  3. Letter

Stop the Presidential Takeover of State Voter Rolls

To: Sen. Collins, Rep. Pingree, Sen. King

From: A constituent in Portland, ME

July 5

As your constituent, I urge you to stop the executive branch from building a federal voter-roll system that courts have repeatedly rejected. This is not ordinary election administration. It is an unprecedented attempt to move core election functions from the states to the executive branch. Since May 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has sought unredacted voter files with partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license data. DOJ has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for refusing. By June 30, judges in 11 states had ruled against DOJ’s demands. On June 24, the Sixth Circuit affirmed DOJ’s loss in Michigan. No court has ruled for DOJ. THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH CANNOT RUN FEDERAL ELECTIONS Executive Order 14399 directs federal agencies to compile citizenship lists for federal elections and the United States Postal Service (USPS) to propose mail-ballot rules tied to state voter lists. A federal court blocked core parts of the order because election authority belongs to states and Congress, not the President. No president should control how Americans choose their representatives. PRIVATE VOTER DATA MUST NOT BE USED FOR PURGES A federal judge blocked the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system from voter-roll checks. The court found the government trampled on citizens’ privacy rights and threatened voting rights. In Boone County, Missouri, more than half of voters SAVE flagged as noncitizens were U.S. citizens. In Texas, one plaintiff was removed from the rolls after SAVE wrongly flagged him. An eligible voter should not lose the right to vote because a federal database is wrong. Once voter data enters federal systems, privacy harm cannot be fully undone. CONGRESS HAS SET THE PURGE RULES Congress set the rules for voter-list maintenance. Under the National Voter Registration Act, states must keep accurate rolls. But states may not conduct systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election. Any executive program that pressures states to conduct systematic removals inside that period would violate the Act and replace Congress’s rule with an executive deadline. That safeguard matters because wrongly flagged voters may not have time to fix errors before Election Day. CONGRESS MUST DISMANTLE THIS SYSTEM Courts have repeatedly rejected the executive branch’s attempt to force states into this system. Congress must protect transferred voter data, stop expansion before November, and restore constitutional balance. (1) REJECT SAVE. Reject the SAVE America Act because it would make this legally flawed system permanent. (2) BAR FUNDING. Attach riders barring funds for SAVE voter checks, the USPS mail-ballot list, and DOJ voter-data collection. (3) REQUIRE DESTRUCTION. Require certified destruction of unlawfully obtained voter files, with Privacy Act penalties for retention. (4) HOLD HEARINGS. Hold oversight hearings on the DOJ litigation campaign that has lost in every court to date. Thank you.

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