Policing the voter rolls
Yesterday the President signed an executive order directing Homeland Security to create a state citizenship list.
"The Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, will create the voter lists. The Department of Justice would investigate any wrongdoing in mail-in ballot distribution. States that disobey the order may lose federal funds."
Trump signs executive order to tighten mail-in voting rules ahead of 2026 midterms
Why is it necessary?
Answer: Because states like California have combined getting a driver's license with registering to vote. Therefore, when a non-citizen goes to the RMV he/she is also offered the chance to register to vote. The form does ask if the applicant is a citizen, but as with the federal voter registration form there appears to be no mechanism in place to check if the applicant actually is or isn't a citizen and thus non-citizen could become registered voters.
So, the federal government and 40 states rely on applicants telling the truth under penalty of perjury while only 11 states require some form of proof of citizenship.
- Eleven states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming — have laws requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote in at least some cases.
- As of March 2026, Alabama and Louisiana have not implemented their proof of citizenship laws. A federal court blocked Kansas' proof of citizenship law in 2018.
- One state, Ohio, requires proof of citizenship only when registering to vote at a Bureau of Motor Vehicles facility.
- Two states, Georgia and Mississippi, require proof of citizenship at the time of registration if a person's citizenship status cannot be confirmed by other means.
- The other 40 states with voter registration systems require applicants to declare that they are U.S. citizens to register to vote in state and federal elections.
Proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration by state - Ballotpedia
Hopefully the list will be completed and in force by this year's midterm elections in November. Trump has directed the Department of Homeland Security to establish a system to compile and transmit the list within 90 days. I'm sure there will be legal challenges from the left.
In other news:
The Supreme Court, siding with a Christian therapist, rejected a state law that banned "conversion therapy."
The US military has begun flying B-52 bombing missions over Iran.
"Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) accused US media of engaging in “selective coverage” that has downplayed the successes of Operation Epic Fury — and instead benefited Iran during the first 30 days of the war."
Exclusive | Sen. John Fetterman bashes US media, says press is helping Iran with 'selective coverage' of Operation Epic Fury
Israel’s defense minister outlined plans for the IDF to occupy southern Lebanon.
A consumer watchdog group is accusing the federally funded National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine of using taxpayer dollars to support DEI, transgender-related and other left-leaning initiatives, according to a new report.
NASEM accused of pushing DEI and transgender causes with taxpayer funds | Fox News
Tonight, if the weather holds, the Artemis II mission will blast off from Florida, carrying humans around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
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Good morning and welcome to the Vic Eldred Cast.
Let us not forget that today is the day that oral arguments begin in the case of "the birthright citizenship clause" of the 14th Amendment.
Those all-important words: “born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, ” will take center stage.
Trump might be in attendence, if so, simpler words would be in order.
There is no slowing him down, is there?
When it comes to pirouetting he's a 'master'. /s
I just hope that I have that much energy IF I make it to his age.
It does take a lot of sapping energy to change one's mind several times daily.
I believe it's referred to as Lindsey Graham syndrome.
Slobbering sycophancy finally has a name ... well done Lindsey!
I think Gavin Newscom may even have a bad case of it. One day he is as radical as can be and when asked about a presidential run he begins to sound rational.
An 8-1 decision. Wonder who that dissenting opinion was...
Lol...I'd love to know!
Ketanji Brown Jackson
BINGO!
it's not really surprising. She'll always support the idiotic liberal nonsense like preying on children like this.
Listening to the discussion this morning I was disappointed that there wasn't more talk about the modern world considerations of having the entire third world attempting to use a very stupid law.
I am also concerned that we may have lost Gorsuch on this one
Citizenship is essentially meaningless if it can be obtained simply by someone's parents taking a vacation and staying for a couple weeks. The ease of international travel makes it laughable.
If the Court rules against it, an amendment will never pass, because the democratic incentives to pander to illegals keeps increasing as the number of foreigners do.
I already knew that the DEI appointee is going to oppose it. Her history already shows that. Gorsuch, may still be brought back.
This just in:
"Herb Morgan has gone down a disturbing financial rabbit hole in his quest to be California’s next state controller, revealing billions of dollars in alleged fraud.
The longtime financial executive and Republican candidate seeking to oversee public dollars issued a new report slamming Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California officials this week, claiming the state faces up to $425 billion in exposure for fraud, waste and abuse.
Morgan notes in a white paper that California has between $312 billion and $425 billion in “fiscal exposure” over five years across major programs including health care, unemployment insurance, homelessness spending and infrastructure."
Damning breakdown of California’s alleged fraud — and where your cash is being burned
Gavin's cut went up. The price of hair jell increased.
Gavin is the epitome of an elitist.
At least Republicans finally have their own homegrown "lost cause". Now they can give back the "lost cause" they stole from Democrats.
Federalizing elections is a really, really, really bad idea. That will concentrate entirely too much corrupting power in Washington D.C. That will only attract tyrants who seek shortcuts for control over America to serve themselves.
Donald Trump is a penthouse billionaire from New York la la land who has never, ever been required to be an American. Trump seeks shortcuts for self benefit. Trump is not serving We the People, Trump is serving himself. Trump's repeated attempts to Federalize elections does not put the people of America first.
Donald Trump wants access to voter rolls so he, alone, can unilaterally pick and choose who are Americans. Donald Trump wants to take our country away from us. We're nothing more than peons who only have the right to bend our knee to a tyrant. Donald Trump is commanding us to submit to his will, as if Trump is a god. If we do this, if we allow Trump to command us in this manner, we will be damned with a false god.
Maybe it is and maybe for the reasons you gave, but it is only a matter of time. We all take notice of when Trump wants it but if you recall the democrats wanted it first:
"Democrats’ massive new bill – H.R. 1 – would give the federal government unprecedented control over U.S. election administration. The legislation, which passed the House last week on a 234-193 party-line vote, would chill political speech and weaken the security that comes from diverse state systems. Instead of incrementally improving election infrastructure and technology in cooperation with states, the bill would federalize the electoral system that has evolved over the past 230 years, at a high, unfunded cost to the states. Among other things, it:
Effectively ends registration deadlines (sec. 1031) and requires states to count ballots that are cast out of county and out of precinct (sec. 1601);
Restricts the process by which states maintain their voter rolls (secs. 1041 and 2502);
Allows all felons, regardless of their crime, to vote after release from prison (sec. 1402); and
Forces states to abandon any form of voter identification law (sec. 1904)."
H.R. 1: Federalizing Elections and Chilling Speech
And of course, Trump wants to do the opposite and make elections more secure.
Donald Trump wants access to voter rolls so he, alone, can unilaterally pick and choose who are Americans.
Actually, Trump only wants citizens to vote. I'd love to see the California voter rolls cross-checked against citizens
You failed to mention that Democrats did not get what they wanted. Thank the filibuster for that.
Well, of course. Trump only wants unilateral control over the election process because only one fucking election matters in the United States -- the Presidency. If Trump gets his way, we can completely eliminate the other 5,000+ elections in the United States. The United States only needs a President and one political party.
That should sound familiar.
Trump wants to pick & choose who are citizens. Isn't that what the SCOTUS case being heard today is all about?
That is true. That may end when one side has a solid majority in the Senate.
Well, of course. Trump only wants unilateral control over the election process because only one fucking election matters in the United States -- the Presidency.
Do you think Trump was treated fairly since he came down the escalator?
Trump wants to pick & choose who are citizens.
And how did you arrive at that conclusion?
We can thank the Democrats who were kicked out of the party for supporting the filibuster.
I firmly believe that Donald Trump has been treated the way Donald Trump wanted to be treated. If that is not the case, the Trump really is too stupid to be allowed access to the Oval Office.
Trump's executive orders that are being challenged in the current SCOTUS case.
I'm sure every district court judge appointed by Obama or Biden, such as maybe judge Rufus Dufus of Biloxi have issued a national injunction!
What does a district judge have to do with state elections? Every election in the United States is a state or local election -- except for the Presidential election. Every elected office in the United States should be under the jurisdiction of their constituency.
Maybe we should do the sane thing and eliminate the Office of the President? Since the Presidency seems to provide the path to tyranny then the sane way to prevent tyranny would be to eliminate it.
What happened to states rights?
Um, trump's own admin said that the election he LOST was the most secure in history.
If MAGA wanted accurate voter rolls why did so many red states drop participation in ERIC, Inc? What this says is Trump and Co is more about access and control than real substance.
There is no excuse for hiding voter rolls.
Can you site the law for requirement? Otherwise it's not 'hiding' it's securing the privacy of information against unlawful access.
For the feds to ask for voter rolls? Up until recently there never was a need for one. Four years ago the southern border was opened and very recently Sen Chris Murphy openly said the following:
"A resurfaced post by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy discussing the people Democrats "care about most" is sparking social media outrage from conservatives, making the case it points to their priorities in the current fight on Department of Homeland Security funding.
In the clip, posted on Monday night by the conservative influencer account End Wokeness, MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Murphy in 2024 about negotiations between Democrats and Republicans happening at the time about a border security bill. Hayes pressed Murphy on why Democrats were pushing to get funding for Ukraine instead of pushing for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, as the party had done in the past.
"Well, I mean, Chris, that’s been a failed play for 20 years," Murphy replied. "So you are right that that has been the Democratic strategy for 30 years, maybe, and it has failed to deliver for the people we care about most, the undocumented Americans that are in this country."
Resurfaced Murphy clip fuels conservative outrage amid DHS funding fight | Fox News
There still isn't. Your quoted post is not evidence of needing any.
Round and round we go
When do we get to see the voter rolls?
Why do you need to see them?
Prove there's fraud...
Show me the voter rolls...
Why do you need to see tem?
Of course you can't see the evidence that would allow you to prove fraud!
And around and around we go...
All I'm asking is for proof of fraud. If there is, it should be a simple job to do so, since this has been on the MAGA agenda long before they called themselves MAGA.
The only argument I've seen so far is you want to see the rolls to find the fraud you think is happening. How about we also make everyone's tax records public so we can make sure there isn't any fraud? Same argument.
It such a simple concept
No it is not the same argument.
You ask for proof and lock everything up
It isn't like there weren't questionable things that needed to be looked into. This would be a great way to settle the issue once and for all.
There is NO issue to be settled. It has all been fully and completely resolved by numerous recounts, audits and by the courts, covering decades of election cycles. Reactionaries pretend there is an issue because it suits their anti-democracy propagandistic efforts.
Like I said to Sean, MAGA has been "questioning things" for many years now and has nothing to show for it, except ALL the investigations that found nothing. If you show me substantive evidence of voter fraud I'll be the first one to back new laws to stop it.
Nope. All a recount does is recount votes. Even the strange events at Fulton County were never looked into.
As I say there is enough smoke to take a look. We can certainly look at who is registered to vote in California.
Think of it as having chest pains. Wouldn't you want an x-ray?
‘All I'm asking is for proof of fraud.’
Has there been any proof of illegals voting in our elections.
If your answer is yes ( as it should be), then there is your evidence. All it takes is one. If there is one, there is probably a lot more not found out about
Vic, you dont know what you are talking about.
Any chance you can stop making ridiculous comments?
The reactionaries' claim that "strange events" occurred in Fulton County has been examined under a microscope, re-examined and then re-examined again, and THERE IS NOTHING THERE.
Neither "you" nor the Trumpist regime has any right to "look" at who is registered to vote in California on just a whim or just because you feel like it.
It's probably just gas(lighting). Try Gas-X or Beano.
You've been through this on other threads. You don't need a sledge hammer to drive a finishing nail. We already have laws to punish those who do things against the law.
But let's say the feds do get to compel a turn over of voter rolls. What do you think the left wing progressive populists would do with them? Would you even know? Or, like other right wing populists are you just thinking that knowing who's on voter rolls will be enough for MAGA to keep all the control?
Now you are deflecting.
I answered the question YOU asked.
End of story.
Any chance you can stay on topic?
Riiiight... You lack any sense of logic and when I point it out, I'm the one deflecting?
Did I not answer your question?
There was no "sense of logic", unless your post included it.
The answer was lacking substance for the question at hand - it kind of sound like this:
Renter: You need to fumigate this whole building.
Landlord: You have a bug problem?
Renter: Yeah... I saw a spider in the bathroom last month.
Landlord: One spider?
Renter: Well, if there is one spider there has to be thousands... right?
Landlord: Ahhh... no.
It’s obvious why this administration wants to break with the built-in protections against relying a centrally controlled voter registration. They’d have you believe that having every state using dozens of counties and parishes to monitor voter fraud is less safe than a single source with the competency of a Trump administration. Just look at the raft of professionals running the show. It’s part QAnon, part reality tv, all swamp.
I can imagine any number of ways that information can be used against people, but who would know since once it's behind the fed wall there is no one there to protect it's use.
So you are saying that if you see one spider, there is absolutely no way there could be thousands of others behind the walk.
[deleted][✘]
So you’re saying that a single spider is cause for fear of thousands of spiders hiding under your bed.[✘]
NO... I'm saying that if you see one spider you should make damned sure there are more before you use something that can do more harm than good.
If you try that strategy with termites you might find part of your house falling down before you see many more.
"Might" is the operative word in your sentence. Plenty of people have used spot treatments vs tenting when dealing with termites. I have opened a wall to clean and repair an affected area myself. I didn't assume the whole house was going to fall down and subject myself, my family and my pets to poison unnecessarily. The house is still standing over a decade later.
But they all (and you) did something about it and did not just ignore it and wait for it to get even worse.
Can you find where I've ever said we shouldn't do anything?
I'm pretty sure I said we already have laws and systems in place for the apparent issue a few people unlawfully voting.
I've also said IF someone can show me the problem is so dire as right-wing populists are running around with their hair on fire screaming about then I'd be onboard with appropriate measures.
Today we remember that great generation and their heroism:
Gee, that doesn't seem like a problem. It relies on someone being honest. S/
And we know how that worked out even in a place of honor like West Point.
John Fetterman is bashing the media for not being sufficiently biased toward Trump by claiming the media has been too selective reporting on Operation Epic Fury? Fetterman is making an up is down, bad is good, and lies are truth blame-game argument?
If the media only reported the tactical 'wins' that have been achieved then the public would be clueless about the war. Why would the public believe the United States is winning when gasoline prices have risen so sharply in such a short period of time? Why did the stock market fall so precipitously? Why are grocery prices rising faster? Why are farmers worried about the cost of fertilizer? Why should the public trust the 'victory dance' while the US moves more troops, ships, and firepower into the Middle East?
Or maybe Fetterman is following the wrong media. Because the reporting I have seen really has reported on the destruction taking place inside Iran. Fetterman doesn't seem to understand that all the firepower used to destroy and kill inside Iran are tactical 'wins'. The success of those tactical 'wins' can only be measured by strategic results. The facts are that 32 days of attacks on Iran have not yielded strategic results touted by Sec. Def., Sec. State, or the President. We've only been hearing about tactical 'wins' from this administration.
It is understandable that politicians, such as Fetterman, do not want to admit they've wasted tons of taxpayer money on high-tech destructo-toys. The United States does, indeed, have the strongest kinetic force for tactical warfare on the planet. What the war with Iran has revealed is the United States doesn't use that tactical force to achieve strategic results. The US military is very good at killing people and destroying property to achieve outstanding tactical results. But tactical planning and domination of the field of battle is not a substitute for a strategic plan.
Iran has threatened the global economy. Iran has shaken the Arab state dependence upon US security. Iran has been seizing upon fractures in the western alliance. Iran has forced Israel to seek an out in Lebanon. Iran has even been mounting a sophisticated economic attack on the US dollar. The Iranian revolutionary constitution is still in place. The Iranian professional military is not deserting or surrendering. There has not been a popular uprising. Iran has achieved measurable strategic results that the US has not.
The media coverage of the Iran War has been atrocious.
We didn't need for the dems only moderate to tell us.
How so? The media have been dutifully reporting public comments by the Trump administration. The media have been dutifully reporting the body counts and strike information. Pete Hegseth clamped down on media access to military information. Hegseth is the filter on what the media reports concerning military 'wins'. The media has been showing declassified strike video provided by the Trump administration. The media cannot report from inside Iran so the Trump administration must provide that information.
Maybe you've been watching the wrong media? That seems to be Fetterman's problem.
Or is the problem that the media has been reporting more than just the administration's filtered political messaging?
Do you remember when USC defeated the Georgia Southern Eagles by a score of 59-20? Imagine if sportswriters described that as a close game.
As far as Trump comments are concerned, some of the things he says are unproven, but that does not mean that they are untrue, which is what the media likes to imply.
War is not football. War is not a game. Killing people and destroying property is not a sport. People don't just go home and get on with their lives when the war is over. The aftermath of war is permanent.
What if the game between USC and the Georgia Southern Eagles was the last game they would ever play? The only reason the sport works is because there will be more games. There won't be a strategic victory that stops the game.
Then provide some of the strategic successes that have been achieved? How has the United States been strengthened by attacking Iran? We have, indeed, spent a lot of money on killing and destruction. What have we gotten for it?
And this war isn't a close contest. The regime is hanging on for dear life
What evidence do you have to support that claim?
All I know for sure is the Strait of Hormuz is closed and the United States hasn't reopened it. All I know is that Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and now Pakistan are pulling the strategic strings. All I know is that the western alliance is not rushing to cover Trump's rump. All I know is the United States is stripping military assets away from other missions that supposedly are critical. All I know is that the military is begging Congress for $200 billion in off-budget supplemental funding (national emergency funding).
All I know is Iran is still firing weapons and hitting targets. All I know is that Iran's allies have not abandoned Iran. All I know is that there aren't any indications that Iran is humiliated and ready to surrender.
So, what evidence do you have that Iran will capitulate and stop fighting?
"The State Department on Wednesday settled a censorship lawsuit with the Daily Wire and The Federalist, agreeing to a legally binding settlement – approved and enforced by a court – that gives the media outlets 10 years of oversight for compliance to the deal.
A federal judge entered the so-called "consent decree" on Wednesday for the lawsuit that was filed in 2023 to ensure that, over the next decade, the department does not fund efforts to deem news outlets “disinformation,” the Daily Wire reported . The plaintiff media outlets will be compliance monitors until 2036.
“Today marks an important day for preserving free speech in the digital era,” Daily Wire CEO Caleb Robinson said. “The U.S. Government has acknowledged its censorship structures under the Biden administration, and will now be subject to limitations on similar behavior in the future.”
State Department settles censorship lawsuit with Daily Wire, Federalist, agrees to consent decree | Just The News
Sounds like an attempt to rig the election in Trumps favor.