Modernize Voter List Maintenance, Don’t Nationalize It
In this analysis:
In January, Utah Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson announced the results of a review of the state’s voter registration list. The search found just one confirmed noncitizen among more than 2 million registered voters. That person never cast a ballot and has now been removed from the list.
Prompted by President Trump’s unfounded yet repeated claims that noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections, these findings confirm just the opposite: states know how to maintain and modernize their voter lists. Election officials weed out ineligible applicants before registration. Throughout the year, they track death records, voter moves, felony convictions, and more to remove deceased and ineligible voters, keeping the rolls accurate and up to date.
Contrary to the President’s efforts to “nationalize” our elections, the Constitution got it right the first time. Only states — with occasional rules set by Congress — have the authority, expertise, and tools to run elections. This authority includes ensuring clean state voter rolls.
As states seek to modernize their list maintenance processes, they should look to one another, rather than the federal government, for guidance on maintaining clean, accurate lists — without compromising voter privacy or voter freedom.
Federal Interference, SAVE Database Threaten Voter Freedom
Voter list maintenance has come under intense scrutiny from President Trump and his allies. Seizing private voter data from the states has become a keystone of his second term. The U.S. Department of Justice has undertaken an unprecedented campaign to access states’ full unredacted voter files, including private information such as driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
Since President Trump returned to office in January 2025, the DOJ has sent letters to nearly every state’s top election official, demanding access to unredacted voter files containing private voter information. A bipartisan group of secretaries of state has rejected these demands. They cite state and federal laws that prohibit them from sharing private voter data with third parties, including the federal government.
This refusal to provide sensitive voter information has led the DOJ to sue more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. So far, several federal courts have blocked these efforts.
In another attempt to obtain state voter data, the Department of Homeland Security has expanded its use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, ostensibly to purge the few noncitizens from voter rolls. While the SAVE database can be a valuable tool under narrow circumstances (and with adequate safeguards in place), it has proven ineffective and unreliable on its own. When misused and mischaracterized, the database only fuels election disinformation and distrust about our election systems.
Texas offers a cautionary tale. When Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson ran the state’s voter registration list through the SAVE database, the system flagged 2,724 potential noncitizens out of more than 18 million registered voters. Secretary Nelson and Gov. Abbott quickly jumped on these findings as definitive evidence of illegal voting in Texas. Their claims helped fuel ongoing unsubstantiated allegations of noncitizens planning to cast ballots en masse.
However, further investigations found that these claims were inflated — and in many cases, flat-out wrong. Many of the flagged individuals had already proven their citizenship when registering with the state’s Department of Public Safety. In some counties, as many as half the voters flagged for investigation had registered at DPS, rendering any citizenship investigation moot.
The bottom line: using the SAVE database without also comparing its findings with the state’s existing records does not make voter lists cleaner.
Instead, it creates additional work for already under-resourced local election officials, who must often conduct unnecessary investigations. These investigations also increase the risk of removing eligible voters due to faulty or incomplete data.
Administrative Errors and Insufficient Funding Exacerbate Disinformation
Every day, new voters register, and existing voters die, move, change their names, or otherwise become ineligible. This dynamism means that list maintenance is a complex, ongoing process. And sometimes, a seemingly small issue can have disruptive consequences.
For example, in 2023, North Carolina election officials learned that the state voter registration form was designed to display required information as optional. Approximately 80,000 voters who used that form to register did not provide a required identification number.
Many of these voters were caught up in a lawsuit challenging more than 60,000 votes cast in the November 2024 state Supreme Court election. Although Republican state Supreme Court candidate Griffin’s challenge was dismissed after months of challenging the election results, the state board of elections found more than 240,000 voters with identification numbers that were either missing or could not be matched to records in other government databases. These mismatches are most likely due to name changes, typos, or other transcription errors.
Counties sought to correct these errors and reduce the burden on voters by using other state data. Still, North Carolina’s outdated Statewide Elections Information Management System (SEIMS) hampered election officials. The almost 30-year-old system is difficult to use and update, and, in some instances, still requires manual forms. For years, the state election board has sought funding to update and eventually replace the rickety system. It still needs more.
Examples like this reveal the importance of investing in list maintenance – from the systems that register voters accurately in the first place to the tools for intra-state agencies to effectively share data and modernized voter registration systems. All those pieces require funding. A poorly designed form and data-entry typos were all it took to fuel one of the most high-profile election contests in recent memory.
States Can Leverage Existing Tools and Modern Safeguards To Improve Voter List Maintenance
Every state conducts voter registration list maintenance, and states routinely update their processes. In 2025, for example, 21 states enacted 30 bills related to voter list maintenance. This year, more than 140 bills have been introduced on the topic. Over half would have negative consequences for voters and election administrators.
States should focus on improvements that encourage better data sharing, expand access to credible resources, and provide greater transparency for voters. Below are some recommendations for states to consider:
Facilitate intra-agency data sharing
Regular updates from state agencies, such as health departments, vital records offices, and corrections departments, help ensure election officials receive timely information on deceased and ineligible voters. Legislation that requires local election officials to notify election officials in a voter’s new county when voters move, such as WA H.B. 1962 (2024), which passed unanimously, makes updating voter registration easier for both officials and voters.
Join a multistate voter list maintenance agreement
Interstate list maintenance compacts help keep voter rolls clean by facilitating secure information exchange between states. The most notable example of such a compact is the bipartisan Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Such organizations are especially useful for identifying when voters move and facilitating the cancellation of their previous registrations. This year, Arizona, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have introduced proposals to join ERIC.
Use available federal resources – with appropriate safeguards
The SAVE database is not the only federal resource that election officials can use for list maintenance. Some states use U.S. Social Security Administration data to identify deceased voters. Others use the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address (NCOA) program to identify voters who have moved. In 2021, Alabama passed H.B. 314 with near-unanimous approval, directing the state to use NCOA data for voter list maintenance.
Provide notice to voters to prevent erroneous removals
Most states notify no-longer-eligible voters that they have been or will soon be removed from the voter rolls. Laws that require these notices, preferably before cancellation, provide transparency and ensure that voters have the opportunity to contest a cancellation made in error. Some laws also allow notices to be sent in multiple formats. For example, under S.B. 165 (2025), Wyoming requires that voters be contacted by email and by mail.
It’s Time to Modernize Voter Registration
Modernized voter registration systems offer some of the best tools for voter list maintenance. Online, automatic, and same-day voter registration options make it simple for applicants to register and for voters to update their registrations while also automatically updating voter rolls with the latest voter information. These systems improve the security and accuracy of states’ voter rolls.
Case in point: In Georgia, a 2024 citizenship audit revealed that only 20 registered voters lacked proof of citizenship (out of 8.2 million registered voters). Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has credited this low number to the state’s use of automatic voter registration and other back-end list maintenance, supported by state and federal resources. States that have struggled to maintain clean lists typically lack one or more of these modern registration systems. Texas, by contrast, offers none of these options.
As states seek to fend off federal interference and keep pace with their mobile populations, they must also consider how to modernize voter registration to better capture data on existing and eligible voters through interactions with other state agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles. They can also make registration convenient, whether it is available online or at the polls. Neither SAVE-induced voter purges nor compliance with DOJ demands for private voter data improves voter list accuracy or strengthens elections. Rather than allow the federal government to take over, states must learn from one another and invest in modern systems.