“Ensuring noncitizens are prevented from registering to vote or voting in our elections is a top priority for Alabama. I have a zero-tolerance policy for noncitizens voting in Alabama’s elections. Fortifying states’ tools to verify the citizenship of those attempting to register and/or registered to vote is a critical objective for me and my colleagues.”

— Wes Allen, Alabama Secretary of State

(from the March 10, 2025 Yellow Hammer article “Wes Allen, state election officials urge Homeland Security to end noncitizen voting”

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen is calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to implement much-needed updates to the agency’s Systematic Alien Verifications for Entitlements (SAVE) program.

The program is a service provided by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services branch of the DHS and is used by state and local governments to verify noncitizen status for individuals applying for social benefits.

Allen, along with 20 other Secretaries of State from across the country, stressed in a letter addressed to the head of DHS, Kristi Noem, the need to change the program.

Due to past guidance from the federal government and structural inadequacies, it is reportedly difficult to verify citizenship for voting purposes using the SAVE database.

Read the entire article here.