Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:
With just four weeks to go before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, President Donald Trump received a boost from the Supreme Court, which allowed him to use a revised SAVE system to “verify” the citizenship of voters on the rolls using government databases that may be outdated or riddled with errors.
This could deprive perfectly eligible voters of their right to vote. But it is part of Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the credibility of the electoral system by exploiting the false notion that non-citizens vote fraudulently—all amid the threat that the Republican Party could lose control of one or both chambers of Congress.
At the moment, all signs point to the Republicans being in electoral trouble, and Trump’s handling of the immigration issue—with violent raids and indiscriminate detentions that affect families and the economy—is one of the factors contributing to voter discontent, with many labeling his immigration policy “excessive.”
But Trump is injecting the immigration issue into the election within the context of widespread “fraud” by non-citizens—a claim he has made in previous elections—but this time he is taking concrete actions, such as using the SAVE system or attempting to intimidate voters, particularly those from minority groups, by threatening to have federal agents present at polling places or in surrounding areas, even though doing so is illegal.
Although the president does not have the power to halt, cancel, postpone, or nationalize the election, Trump has shown he is capable of anything, even if the courts ultimately stop him. Press reports indicate that there are figures within his inner circle who have urged him to declare martial law because the SAVE Act—which seeks to restrict the voting rights of millions of Americans—did not become law. They say this means the election results are already tainted.
These are the same people who continue to claim that Trump was “robbed” of the 2020 election—which he legitimately lost to Democrat Joe Biden—and who led him to instigate a violent and bloody riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.
The Supreme Court sometimes puts the brakes on some of the administration’s orchestrated, multi-pronged efforts to interfere in the November 3 election. For example, the high court blocked Trump’s attempts to hinder mail-in voting.
But it rules in his favor in other cases, such as the use of a revised SAVE Act to verify voters’ citizenship. This system determines people’s immigration status and eligibility for federal benefits.
The Trump administration expanded it to determine whether registered voters are actually citizens. It does so by adding information such as Social Security numbers to government databases that, critics say, are riddled with errors and could deprive many of their right to vote.
“Advocacy groups that sued to block the revised SAVE system said that the new approach has resulted in people who were wrongfully identified as noncitizens being kicked off voter rolls. They have argued that SAVE can be outdated, meaning immigrants who have become naturalized US citizens and are thus eligible to vote are sometimes labeled as noncitizens,” reported the Reuters news agency.
“In their Supreme Court filing, the advocacy groups cited a Travis County, Texas, election official who said 25% of the system’s noncitizen matches there involved people who had already proven their US citizenship, and news reports finding that at least 81% of the system’s responses in St. Louis County, Missouri, were erroneous,” the news agency added.
“Based on the discredited myth of widespread election fraud, the administration’s multipronged plan includes 15 interlocking tactics designed to make it harder for eligible Americans to exercise their right to vote,” stated an August report from the Center for American Progress (CAP).
“The Trump administration is carrying out a plan to subvert the 2026 midterm elections with a goal of entrenching its power and escaping accountability from voters,” CAP concluded.
The question remains whether it will succeed or whether the coordinated offensive by civic organizations and the courageous participation of voters themselves will thwart its plans.
The original Spanish version is here.
