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.
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.
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.
You mean, weaponized.
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.
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.
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.
That's how I roll.
We're already seeing them do that without a database. 🤷♂️
Other countries are able to maintain internal databases without using them to screw over their own citizens (except when they do). The problem isn't the 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?
It's not a problem. It's fair to assume anything the Trump administration does is nefarious.
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!
With everything he does the issue is the implementation. Deport criminal aliens? I'm all for it, but most of the deportees have no criminal record or they accuse them of crimes as if it's the same thing as a conviction.
Part of Trump's grand plan is to make federal elections span only a single day. So maybe you check your status the day before and everything is fine, but the day of voting a glitch in the system says it can't verify your citizenship. That's it! No votes for you this year!
Don't see the problem. For years in Italy elections were a one day only events (normally a Sunday) and everything worked fine.
There are solutions since the system need to be resilient, note that the glitch could be even not "wanted" so while you can think that $HATED_CANDIDATE want to keep his opponents away from the voting, in the same way $HATED_CANDIDATE want to make sure that his supporters can vote.