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.
So, states already have their list of registered voters, this is about culling people from that list the state doesn't think should really be there (but really specifically those supporting the opposition of the party in power, typically Republicans removing minority groups).
The reason removing people is a real thing that needs to happen is that people aren't permanent citizens of a state, they're just residents, and what state they are a resident of for voting purposes is extremely easy to change, and doesn't really require notifying the state you're leaving, just the one you now want to be a resident of.
The reason this specific thing is bullshit is that every time anyone does any kind of check for non-citizens voting, it's basically non-existent. Instead, they're going to use the pretense of checking citizenship to check other information, which they'll selectively find other discrepancies in to remove people who are registered, but are likely to support their opposition. Likely with little time before an election, so hopefully they don't find out until it's too late or other frictions cause them to forgo voting voluntarily.