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.
There was talk of establishing a national ID in the 90s but republicans revolted saying it would be the number of the beast. I guess their principles on the matter depend on whether the beast in question is Trump or Clinton. There would definitely be scope creep for such an ID, much like the SSN. I say just make it a national ID and eliminate the need to register to vote.