State Department weighs sharing passport records to verify voters’ citizenship

The State Department is assessing how it could grant state and local officials access to federal passport records to verify voters’ citizenship status ahead of the midterm elections in November.

The department is weighing how to share passport information with state and local officials, as well as some nonprofit groups, as part of the initiative that aims to ensure registered voters are U.S. citizens.

The objective of the plan is to share the information in a way that “protects Americans’ data, deters fraud and supports the integrity of U.S. citizenship,” a department spokesperson said in a statement to NewsNation.

The Justice Department disclosed the plan in a court filing last week, saying federal officials plan to use passport records to identify potential noncitizens on voter registration rolls.

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According to the filing, the State Department will publish a notice in the Federal Register proposing to share information contained in the Passport Services Records system with other federal agencies.

The notice would permit “information sharing with various entities utilizing federal government verification platforms, for the purpose of verifying the identity or citizenship for users accessing government websites and applications, voter eligibility, and other governmental services,” according to the filing.

The records the Trump administration plans to share include personally identifiable information contained in the State Department’s Passport Services Records system.

The 1974 Privacy Act requires the federal government to provide public notice establishing a new “routine use” for records maintained in a federal records system.

The DOJ filing said the notice could be published in the Federal Register as early as Oct. 22.

The filing came just days before a 6-3 Supreme Court decision on Friday that allowed the Department of Homeland Security to share citizenship information so local governments can verify whether registered voters are U.S. citizens.

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Earlier attempts by the administration to use federal records to verify voter eligibility primarily relied on records from the Social Security Administration and DHS, with several of those efforts halted by successful court challenges.

The filing was submitted in a lawsuit brought by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee against President Trump over his executive order on mail voting. The Supreme Court recently blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing parts of that order, though other provisions remain in effect.

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The filing was submitted in a case brought by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and other Democratic plaintiffs challenging Trump’s executive order on mail voting. The Supreme Court recently declined to lift a lower-court injunction blocking the U.S. Postal Service from adopting its final mail-ballot rule for the November elections.