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State election officials are raising legal and practical concerns about a new Trump administration plan to create a digital version of the existing federal voter registration form.
Under the proposal, the federal government would both verify voter identity and check citizenship against a system run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security before making the applications available to states.
The proposal — discussed on recent calls between the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, federal officials working to design the new tool, and state officials — would for the first time allow the federal voter registration form to be filed online. Currently, voters must submit the form on paper. Most states are required to accept the federal registration form, just as they would their own state-specific forms.
Notes summarizing an Oct. 17 call for members of the National Association of State Election Directors said association members “representing states of both parties expressed serious concerns with this project not complying with state law” and also that “the developers do not seem to want to spend the time to understand election official concerns.”
A very small percentage of voters use this form to register, noted Leslie Reynolds, executive director of the National Association of Secretaries of State in an Oct. 23 call, something election officials confirmed. “We’re coming into a federal election year, and if this goes awry, that could be a big deal,” Reynolds said.
Among the concerns raised in the call, notes and recordings show, were how the proposal would align with federal and state laws, what information the federal government would retain about applicants, and whether people could be inadvertently disenfranchised.
Users of the digital form would be required to verify their identity via a federal website that requires a passport, driver’s license or state identification, or a Social Security number, federal officials told state officials during calls this month, according to a recording of one call and notes summarizing the other that were obtained by Votebeat, as well as people who were on the calls.
EAC Chairman Donald Palmer said the agency “is facilitating discussion with state election officials on modernizing an accessible tool to provide a verifiable digital registration option with a new online experience to registrants using the Federal Form,” and stressed that the existing form option would remain available.
The U.S. General Services Administration, which helps the government with technology needs, referred a request for comment to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond before publication.
Trump administration asserts authority over voter registration
The federal government’s goal is to modernize the form and make it easier to use, said Akash Bobba, the federal developer who spoke on the Oct. 23 call organized by NASS, according to the recording. Bobba said the project is part of the National Design Studio, which President Donald Trump launched through an executive order earlier this year.
The EAC’s executive director, Brianna Schletz, “emphasized that the EAC is not trying to replace what the states are already doing, they’re just trying to make it easier for those who do want to use the federal form,” according to the NASED notes summarizing the Oct. 17 call.
State and local election officials usually oversee voter registration. States have historically resisted federal efforts to expand control over elections, including former President Joe Biden’s order directing federal agencies to engage in voter registration, which drew fierce opposition from Republicans.
But the Trump administration has been more aggressive in targeting voter registration procedures as part of a sweeping overhaul of how elections are run. It has pushed for requiring documentary proof of citizenship for all applicants, and scrutinized states over their management of voter rolls, though federal courts have blocked some efforts.
It revamped a DHS tool known as SAVE to allow state election officials to more easily check their voter rolls against immigration records. Several states, including Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, are already doing so, while others have pushed back on the administration’s efforts.
Election officials press for details and answers
Election officials who heard the proposal for the online voter registration form asked numerous questions about how it would align with state laws, according to the recording and notes. Previous efforts to create a universal registration form have faltered over the same challenge: complying with a patchwork of state requirements.
They also pressed for details about the new tool, many of which Bobba and EAC officials said they couldn’t immediately provide, according to the recording and notes, though they did say that states would receive all the information included on the paper registration form now.
Bobba couldn’t immediately say how much information the EAC or other federal agencies would retain, according to the recording of the NASS call. He said “clear data retention policies” would be given to the states ahead of implementation, and that he couldn’t offer information immediately about how SAVE would store the information. “I don’t know what they retain and what they are logging,” he said.
David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the efforts “an absolute and complete waste of time.” Very few people use the federal form to register, he said, and he would be “extremely surprised” if any state — “even Trump-aligned states” — promoted a registration method they don’t control.
Michelle Tassinari, director and legal counsel for the Massachusetts elections division in the secretary of state’s office, asked whether such a program would require a change to federal law. “The voter is no longer submitting an application to the state — which is what the NVRA allows them to do,” she said, according to the recording. Reached for comment, she said in an email that the proposal would require states to obtain the applications from the EAC, rather than requiring the voter to submit the application to the appropriate election office.
A federal official said they would take that under advisement.
Camden Kelliher, the EAC’s general counsel, told attendees on the Oct. 17 call that the online form, which would require the additional verification steps, would not replace the existing paper version, according to notes summarizing the call, but would provide voters a new way to fill it out. Schletz noted that the online tool would need disclaimer language about those steps “as well as to accommodate usage of SAVE.”
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, confirmed in an interview with Votebeat that she had been on the NASS call and said she has “serious concerns” about whether Maine could accept the online federal form.
The proposal, as outlined, she said “is not an appropriate role for the federal government under the Constitution and may lead to disenfranchising people because of the lack of coordination with state requirements and deadlines.”
Pennsylvania Department of State spokeswoman Amy Gulli said that Congress had made clear “that voters, who must be citizens, must be permitted to register with the Federal Form without providing documentary proof of citizenship.”
Could voters be misled?
The recording and notes also show that election officials are concerned that any delays in federal identity checks through login.gov or SAVE could lead voters to think they’re registered when they have actually missed the deadline. They also asked whether vote.gov, the federal government website that would host the tool, could prioritize directing users to state voter registration options.
Officials raised further concerns about state requirements for “wet signatures” rather than digital ones, saying the online form might not satisfy those laws. States often rely on that signature over time for other purposes, such as validating absentee ballot requests. In 2023, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Texas’ wet-signature requirement after a nonprofit group challenged it in hopes of creating such a national form.
All but eight states permit online voter registration, but many restrict it to people who have a state driver’s license or ID, and they rely on signatures on file with other state agencies. Some states allow digital signatures; others don’t. On the Oct. 23 call, according to the recording, Bobba and others said they were still working on how to handle such requirements, but signaled that they understood all states might not be able to accept the form.
In such cases, and in six states that aren’t required to accept the federal form — Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming — users would be directed to other registration options, they said.
Bobba said during the NASS call that developers are still working with DHS on how the tool will interface with SAVE, but hope to pilot it with some states within months. Heather Honey, a deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at DHS, was also on the NASS call, NASS officials said on the recording. DHS did not respond to an email requesting comment before publication.
Schletz told attendees on the Oct. 17 call that current discussions are “informal,” and that EAC commissioners will later vote on whether to stay involved.
Maria Benson, a spokeswoman for NASS, said via email that the organization will invite those working on the project to another call with the association’s elections committee “in the near future. Until then, we will continue to urge the EAC to closely collaborate with Chief Election Officials as this project progresses.”
Editorial Director Jessica Huseman contributed to this article.
Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.