Four States Settle Lawsuits to Access Voter Citizenship Data

Tue Dec 02 2025 09:06:38 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio have reached a settlement with the federal government to access voter citizenship data, impacting future elections and voter verification processes.

The states of Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio have finalized a settlement with the Department of Homeland Security regarding access to voters’ citizenship data, originally disputed for over a year. This agreement allows the states to verify thousands of voters’ citizenship statuses while raising concerns about the implications for eligible voters in upcoming elections.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Four Republican-led states agreed to settle lawsuits against the federal government over access to voters’ citizenship data, ending a dispute that began with the Biden administration in advance of the 2024 presidential election.

Officials in Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio entered the settlement with the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem roughly a year after the states individually sued the agency under President Joe Biden. They had alleged the previous administration was withholding information about citizenship status that they needed to determine whether thousands of registered voters were actually eligible to cast a ballot.

Each state could soon run searches for thousands of voters using names, birthdays, and Social Security numbers through the federal government’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program. This program was significantly upgraded under the Trump administration. The settlement reached Friday allows states to share driver’s license records with DHS “to assist in improving and modernizing” its database.

The information sharing is expected to be a focus in the 2026 midterm elections. Voting rights advocates have already taken legal action against the expanded SAVE program, arguing that the updates could lead to unlawful purges of eligible voters from the rolls. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice under President Trump has requested complete voter rolls from at least half the states, which Democratic election officials have expressed concerns about, fearing misuse of the data by DHS.

Voting by noncitizens is illegal in federal elections and can lead to felony charges and deportation. State reviews indicate that it is rare for noncitizens to register and even rarer for them to actually vote.

Before the 2024 election, Trump claimed without evidence that noncitizens might vote in large enough numbers to sway the outcome. Many Republican candidates and lawmakers argue that any instance of a noncitizen voting illegally is unacceptable.

The SAVE program has been utilized for decades by local and state officials to check the citizenship status of individuals applying for public benefits through multiple federal databases, according to DHS. Recent updates have made it free for election officials and enabled them to perform bulk searches of voters' citizenship status. The database is said to return verification of citizenship status within 48 hours following the submission of a name, date of birth, and government-issued number.

As part of this settlement, the four states will develop a memorandum of understanding with the federal government within 90 days regarding the use of the SAVE program. They are also set to negotiate a new information-sharing agreement aimed at improving the system, which may involve providing DHS with 1,000 randomly selected driver’s license records from their states.