Dem
47
GOP
53
The administration has constantly been trying to get states to turn over their voting rolls to the federal government. It wasn't entirely clear what the feds were going to do with them if it got them. Now it is becoming clear. Apparently it has some magic software, called SAVE, that can run a person's name, last four digits of their Social Security number, and date of birth (and possibly partisan registration?) and determine if that person is a U.S. citizen. The government has not explained where it got the software, the corresponding database, or how it works. It certainly hasn't allowed any external experts to examine or test it. We don't see how that information can be enough to determine citizenship, since applying for a Social Security number does not require proof of citizenship. Many noncitizens living legally in the U.S. have Social Security numbers (e.g., green card holders). The government now has the voter registration information for 33 million voters.
Although the feds cannot remove voters from the rolls, they can (and have) asked states to do so and some have complied. Ohio will soon remove thousands of people who haven't voted recently on the presumption that they are dead. If the information given to the states is based on the Social Security death index, there will be a massive number of incorrect removals.
Why? Well, here's the problem. Suppose a state sends in a voter named John Smith whose last four SSN digits are 1234 and the SSA finds a John Smith 1234 who died last year. That DOES NOT mean this voter should be purged, because there are an estimated 47,000 John Smiths in the country. With only 10,000 combinations of the last four SSN digits, it is likely that there are four or five "John Smith 1234" people out there. Also, four or five "John Smith 9876" and every other four-digit number. That one of them died doesn't mean all of them died. Within a state there will be fewer, but there could be two or three in a big state and people move all the time. This system will produce massive errors, especially with common names.
Although this system may seem racially neutral, it may not be. Black people tend to have a much more limited number of names. Enslaved people often took on the last name of their owner. Names like John {Williams | Johnson | Smith | Jackson} are pretty common so there are going to be many Black people with the same name. Statistically, someone named Krzysztof Paderewski is not likely to be Black and is not likely to be confused with one of the hundreds of other Krzysztof Paderewskis in the state because there aren't hundreds of them in any state. Consequently, an automated system is likely to kick out many Black voters because they are easily confused with dead people with the same name. This will be less common with white people, because their range of names is greater and there are fewer "duplicates." (V)