Cybersecurity Policy Report, Election Bill Amendment Aims to Protect Voters’ Personal Data, (Mar 24, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:Social Security Administration
Legislation that would prohibit the federal government from accessing personal data in states’ voter registration rolls has been offered by Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) as an amendment to a voter eligibility bill being considered by the Senate.
The amendment proposed by Sen. Durbin, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, would “prohibit the Federal Government from accessing the personal private information of any individual as contained in the voter registration records, databases, or other similar information of any State,” according to its text.
The amendment is one of several introduced by Sen. Durbin as the Senate debates the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (S 1383), which would require states to verify the U.S. citizenship of individuals registering to vote.
The SAVE Act cleared the House last month by a vote of 218-213 and has been consuming the Senate’s schedule for the past week. President Trump said he wouldn’t sign any other legislation until Congress passed the SAVE Act, but Senate Democrats have blocked the legislation.
Sen. Durbin’s amendment addresses a provision of the SAVE Act that would require states to submit voter registration data to the Department of Homeland Security to purge noncitizens from voter rolls, he noted in a news release. But “unreliable data” used by DHS “could purge voter rolls of eligible voters,” he said.
The amendment also would “discourage” the Department of Justice from requesting voter data from states, Sen. Durbin added. Several states are fighting those requests (CPR, Jan. 30).
Another SAVE Act amendment proposed by Sen. Durbin would require the inspector general (IG) for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to determine whether personnel from the White House Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “illegally accessed or disclosed” SSA data and whether any DOGE officials “should be referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution,” according to its text.
Sen. Durbin noted reports that the Trump administration recently admitted in court that a DOGE employee shared confidential SSA data with a nongovernmental group that wanted the data to investigate voter fraud (CPR, Feb. 12).
“This amendment would direct the SSA Inspector General to investigate all the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) activities at SSA to understand the scope of unauthorized disclosure of Americans’ personal data,” he said. “The best way to protect U.S. elections is to investigate DOGE’s attempt to use Americans’ personal information to steal elections—not establishing stricter voter requirements.”
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