The Trump administration has, for the first time ever, built a searchable national citizenship data system.
The tool, which is being rolled out in phases, is designed to be used by state and local election officials to give them an easier way to ensure only citizens are voting. But it was developed rapidly without a public process, and some of those officials are already worrying about what else it could be used for.
NPR is the first news organization to report the details of the new system.
For decades, voting officials have noted that there was no national citizenship list to compare their state lists to, so to verify citizenship for their voters, they either needed to ask people to provide a birth certificate or a passport — something that could disenfranchise millions — or use a complex patchwork of disparate data sources.
The posts on this thread are evidence that people don’t actually care about the policies; if there is an oompa loompa behind it, it must be bad.
Almost every move the current US administration has done to cut red tape has been utterly stupid. This one actually makes sense. Having a separate citizenship database for every state is just silly.
So if you vote against him, you lose citizenship and he gets 100% of the votes?
There is no evidence of voter fraud from people who actually vote. This is blatant government overreach to secure illegitimate votes, “if they’re in the system, then they can vote.”
This system will only lead to inflation of “bot” or fake identities to inflate voter numbers for any particular candidate polling.
Person from outside the US here. Please explain me why this is a problem?
In the EU only citizens can vote in national elections, for local elections non-citizens can vote only if they are residents.
It’s not a problem. It’s fair to assume anything the Trump administration does is nefarious.
You already can’t vote if you’re not a citizen. There are voter rolls and you get checked off when you go vote.
This almost certainly will be used to deport people without going through due process.
I think in most cases where this administration seems to have a good idea it’s important to remember that it’s likely designed to keep them in power.
A national database that the trump admin controls will 100% be exploited for their own gain, just like every other aspect of government is being exploited for their gain now.
What happens if someone is illegitimately removed from this database? How can you show whether it was a glitch, or deliberate? How do you know if the information they have about you is even right, or get it changed if you need to? Where’s the accountability?
See the UK Post Office accounting scandal, in which a persistent computer error went unfixed for decades and caused hundreds of post office employees to be fired and dragged through courts for corruption that never happened. A good chunk of them committed suicide. The government and the software company both knew about the bug causing the issue, too, but prosecutions continued. “If the computer says it, it must be right”, sort of danger.
See the UK Post Office accounting scandal, in which a persistent computer error went unfixed for decades and caused hundreds of post office employees to be fired and dragged through courts for corruption that never happened. A good chunk of them committed suicide.
The database is the least important part of the system: the organizational structure, rules, and procedures are way more important, because they actively help or harm people.
That’s a really weird way of looking at it. Without the database, there’s no central ledger to consult as to whether or not you’re legally a person. Like @atrielienz@lemmy.world said:
The database is the backbone of them being able to hurt or harm
Without that starting point, “the organizational structure, rules, and procedures” that rely on the data from the database are impotent.
The database is the backbone of them being able to hurt or harm so I’d say it’s pretty important. Here’s the other problem though. The federal government under Trump is having a really difficult time protecting the personal identifiable information of the citizens. Not only have they allowed private companies to access that data (palantir etc), but they are also having a lot of difficulties with cyber attacks. Part of the reason those cyber attacks haven’t been as effective as they could be is because the data isn’t localized in one place. Now that’s exactly what they’re trying to do with this.
Same fucking way americans correct issues with SSA, DHS, and the IRS: paperwork. Come the fuck on with this slippery slope bullshit. Ever had a job? The I-9 employment authorization paperwork… just shut up
Looking for ways the system can be abused and addressing those loopholes is basic risk assessment, so
just shut up
I strongly suggest taking a heaping helping of your own advice, mate.
Slippery slope? It’s literally been done. Voter roles purged too close to an election to be able to vote. The complaint here is that this database makes it too easy to do what they’ve already done a bunch of times.
You can be snarky, or you can be ignorant. It’s a bad look to be both.
Yes I think you missed the point.
If you are purged you can’t vote. That becomes a problem on election day.
You might get a feel-good provisional ballot but no real way to track that it got counted.
This is what happened last year, except by a bunch of randos claiming that so-and-so wasn’t a legal voter, with no proof or recourse.
So now they can just check against RNC registered voters and “disable” 10% of people who aren’t registered RNC and no way to prove or possibly even know until after the election passes.
No thanks.
Not to mention they could run this against the voter rolls, so you show as eligible if you check your registration status, but have your ballot tossed (or get turned around at the polling place) because you’re not on this other database.
Because they want to use the data for more nefarious purposes to displace non-white American voters.
The US is generally the same where some local elections allow non-citizen residents to vote for local issues.
The issue with this is was not created publicly. We don’t know what kind of data is being uses to determine someone’s status. If someone is private enough to not have any data collected by its source, then they could be denied voting rights despite being legally able to vote.
It also could end up bring used as the sole source for verifying someone’s status, despite having documents to prove otherwise.
I would imagine it’s based on social security numbers.
So it’s credit score based?
Every region in the world has its way of doing things. When new layers of control are added, it makes some people nervous.
When the new controls are perhaps mismanaged and corrupt, promising to do more than advertised, it makes some people angry. Especially during an increase of lawlessness and corruption of the central government. Especially when it uses the same messaging which has already harmed many
The ONLY People who Are WORRIED about This are STUPID LIBRULS trying to ILLEGALLY Vote! Everyone else is TOTALLY Fine with this because there’s NO WAY a Database like This can be Misused by a Government Deporting LEGAL CITIZENS and trying to Make GAY AND TRANS PEOPLE ILLEGAL!
Is it built on top of a Palantir database?
no no, it’s an input to a Palantir database
My money’s on it
Where I live we have something called the electoral roll, which is a nationwide database of registered voters.
It’s weird the states don’t also have this already.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a legitimate implementation of such a system. It will absolutely be intentionally flawed in ways that allow the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans citizens. That’s 100% what always happens with Republican initiatives to “protect” elections. It will be made trivial to “accidentally” remove legitimate voter registrations, and a labyrinthian bureaucratic process to correct them.
So, states already have their list of registered voters, this is about culling people from that list the state doesn’t think should really be there (but really specifically those supporting the opposition of the party in power, typically Republicans removing minority groups).
The reason removing people is a real thing that needs to happen is that people aren’t permanent citizens of a state, they’re just residents, and what state they are a resident of for voting purposes is extremely easy to change, and doesn’t really require notifying the state you’re leaving, just the one you now want to be a resident of.
The reason this specific thing is bullshit is that every time anyone does any kind of check for non-citizens voting, it’s basically non-existent. Instead, they’re going to use the pretense of checking citizenship to check other information, which they’ll selectively find other discrepancies in to remove people who are registered, but are likely to support their opposition. Likely with little time before an election, so hopefully they don’t find out until it’s too late or other frictions cause them to forgo voting voluntarily.
I’m fairly sure we already do, but they are administered state by state, and not centralized.
Yeah, it is called voter rolls.
This must be opposed by all state authorities
Sounds very 1930’s German like.
