It Could Happen Here - How Trump Will Try To Make Voting Restrictions Even Worse

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

Ahead of the midterms, Garrison explains the current status of Trump’s executive orders to to restrict mail in voting and purge voter rolls, and how the worst effects may not come until 2028.   Sources: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296/text https://www.whitehouse.gov/saveamerica/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/preserving-and-protecting-the-integrity-of-american-elections/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/ https://michigandems.com/michigan-leaders-slam-mike-rogers-for-trying-to-intimidate-and-disenfranchise-detroit-voters/ https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a124_hgci.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053.192.0.pdf https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-17238.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a124_hgci.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a305_4g15.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a308_pok0.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/save/current-user-agencies/guidance/voter-registration-and-voter-list-maintenance-fact-sheet https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/supreme-court-revives-dhs-use-of-flawed-immigration-database-for-voter-purges/ https://www.sos.state.tx.us/about/newsreleases/2026/091526.shtml https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/09/supreme-court-clears-way-for-trump-administration-to-use-modified-voter-verification-database/ https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/us/politics/nevada-voters-homeland-security-trump.html https://www.propublica.org/article/save-voter-citizenship-tool-mistake https://apnews.com/article/midterm-elections-immigration-officers-ice-voting-e43c1758ccd446eb441957b36f9e281f See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Melissa Jeltson, host of the What Happened to Her podcast. We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story, a case the police rode off as a suicide in a snowstorm. Her family never bought it, and the man they suspected wore a badge. You never know who that devil is because he's wearing in disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform.

And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an I-Heart True Crime Plus subscription exclusively on Apple Podcasts, available only to IHeart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for IHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Yuwanu. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Di Giulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. There should not be a single law enforcement agency. It does not have body cameras. It's real. Black farmers have been under attack. This is just the latest example of them just slapping DEI on anything. It's raw. And I'm sitting here going, they are playing y'all for fools. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the IHart radio app, Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

You broke me. You do not deserve happiness. I'm Andrea Gunning. On this season of betrayal, Carl thought he was living a normal, drama-free life until the messages started. Someone's not going to make it out of this. alive. Every piece of evidence pointed to the wrong guy. He was not going to stop unless we stopped him. Listen to Betrayal Season 6 on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On recent episodes of The Questlove show, I chat with Jojo about her music and Wallow 267 about his story, everything in between.

Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave get out, or too little too late, or baby it's you. And I'm going to be like, okay, cool. Check out my conversation with JoJo, Wally-O-267, and more on the Questlove show. Listen to the Questlove show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Peace. Also, media. The midterm elections are just two weeks away, with early voting already underway. And this year, more than many others in recent memory, there has been a pleasant.

of attempts to make it harder for you to vote, or making it so your vote may not count the same way it has before. Literally, in cases legislating whether Trump can prevent mail and ballots from being counted after Election Day, which he cannot, but also through partisan gerrymandering, mid-decade redistricting, and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, which has resulted in the votes of some black Americans in the south, being diluted across newly drawn districts. The president has promised to give each U.S. citizen adult $5,000 if Republicans maintain control of Congress. And this past month, the White House has used taxpayer dollars to broadcast pro-Trump campaign ads. About a week and a half ago, there was widely publicized photos of National Guard

troops standing in front of ballot drop boxes in Washington, D.C. Troops, who National Guard officials say, were not stationed there to guard boxes. But voter intimidation through the presence of military, federal agents, or police officers at polling sites is a huge concern going into these midterms, especially as ICE is detaining both immigrants and U.S. citizens suspected of being immigrants at levels, never be foreseen. Earlier this year, the Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, who's going up against Abdul al-Said, told Kalamazoo County Republicans that he plans to recruit cops as, quote, poll watchers, according to leaked audio from a GOP meeting, also saying,

quote, go ahead, try to intimidate them. So we called the RNC early and said, hey, you know, if we're going to do this again, I don't want to, wake up at three, you know, go to bed at 2 a.m. A winter and wake up at 4 a.m. A loose, I'm kind of done with that. And so, in a van full of ballast that shows up in the middle of the year, which I wish didn't happen. So what we got them to commit to was they're going to have a healthy

voter integrity program. The fact that they've already hired a deputy told you how far ahead of the game. We weren't that far before. And I've been telling them, you know what? Let's put police officers, retired for off-duty police officers as our poll watchers in the truck. Because go ahead, try to intimidate them. Please. Please.

Yeah. What's that? We're trying to find them. I mean, they wouldn't be able to wear their uniforms. But they would, you know, all you've got to do is open your jacket. You see the badge on the belt, right? Also notable in this leaked audio is how Mike Rogers insinuates his last Senate race, which he lost to Alyssa Slotkin,

was stolen from him because of a van full of ballots. It seems almost inevitable that if Republicans lose these midterms, they will invent all sorts of election conspiracy theories and spread false claims of mass voter fraud to both contest these results and limit free and fair elections in the future. But this episode, I want to do an overview of the way the Trump administration is currently trying to make it harder to vote what they have been able to do before the midterms

and finally what they could do in the future. This is It Could Happen Here. I'm your host, Garrison Davis. The big thing Trump wants, but he'll probably never get, is the passage of the Save America Act, a bill that would require voters provide photo ID and proof of citizenship

to register to vote in federal elections, not just a driver's license or even a real ID card. This would disenfranchise over 20 million Americans who do not have citizenship documents like passports or birth certificates readily available. Trump's Save Act would also mandate regular voter role purges and aims to heavily restrict mail-in or absentee voting. To quote the White House,

quote, no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. Much of Trump's election ire has been directed at absentee or mail-in-voting, despite this being the very method by which Trump himself casts his ballot. I'm not going to focus on what passing the Save America Act specifically would mean for U.S. elections, because it's just not very likely that this bill will ever pass this night. But as Trump grew frustrated at the Save Act being indefinitely stalled, he turned to other means for similar ends. On March 31st, 26, President Trump signed Executive Order 14399, or ensuring citizenship verification and integrity in federal elections. This order was a test of executive power

by attempting to institute federal policies similar to provisions within the SAVE Act, but through bypassing Congress entirely. In particular, the order focused on two things, having DHS create, quote, state citizenship lists, a list of individuals confirmed to be U.S. citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming federal election and who maintain residence in the subject state, and the order also directed the United States Postal Service to, quote, initiate a proposed rulemaking on mail-in and absentee ballots, to, quote, establish uniform standards for mail-in or absentee ballot services. These new standards would include a new requirement that outbound absentee ballots feature a unique barcode to facilitate tracking and a provision specifying

that the USPS would not transmit any mail-in or absentee ballots for any individual who does not appear on a federal state-by-state list of pre-verified voters. To create this list, which may or may not be the same as the state citizenship list, the order keeps this kind of vague, but to create this list, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and the Postmaster General would quote coordinate to implement this executive order. According to the order, states would be able to, quote, suggest modifications to the Postal Service's state-specific mail-in and absentee participation list.

So that all sounds bad. And a group of 23 states and the District of Columbia sued, alleging the executive order was unconstitutional and violated separation of powers by infringing on the state's authority to administer elections. In June, a district court in Massachusetts agreed and blocked the order. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, and in August, the court issued an order on the shadow docket, with the conservative majority ruling 6'3,

that the coalition of states and the district court lacked the legal authority to block the order because no harm had yet come from the executive order. So essentially, the Supreme Court lifted the lower court's injunction, allowing Trump's executive order to go into effect, because they thought it was just too soon for states to file a challenge because the order hadn't yet gone into effect, and so the plaintiffs hadn't yet to suffer any injury. This was totally crazy and, like, totally defeats the entire point of the shadow docket. The whole point of the shadow docket, or the emergency issue, interim docket, is that there's potential of serious irreparable harm if the court does not intervene. But in this ruling, the conservative majority wrote that the state's supposed concrete

injury was only a, quote, unduly long chain of inferences. So this ruling in August gave the Trump administration the green light to have DHS create and send state citizenship lists to each each state 60 days ahead of the upcoming federal elections, cataloging each person in every state who DHS believes is eligible to vote. Now, the Supreme Court wrote, quote, states are not required to use the lists. But this executive order also requires the Attorney General to, quote, prioritize the investigation and, as appropriate, the prosecution of state and local officials or any others who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters. So Trump is effectively compelling states to follow these DHS lists or else they will face prosecution. In their ruling, the conservative majority wrote that

the lower court concluded states did suffer a present injury because the order required them to, quote, begin planning now on how to comply with it. But the Supreme Court wrote, states, quote, cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is certainly not impending, unquote. Though, of course, the conservative majority found that the government is, quote, likely to suffer irreparable harm without a stay. And so the stay was granted, lifting the injunction. But there was something interesting at the end of this Supreme Court ruling.

They wrote, quote, The court's disposition on this application does not mean that any measure taken by the government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell. But the order itself does not harm the states, so the district court lacked jurisdiction to bar the government from trying to implement it, unquote. So the Supreme Court at least insinuates there that the Trump administration may not necessarily lawfully implement this executive order, but in order for states to file a challenge,

the order has to at least partially go into effect. When this ruling was issued, the Postal Service had not yet published their final rule, implementing parts of Trump's executive order. And so, the court never addressed the part of the executive order, requiring the Postal Service to review the eligibility of voters before transmitting their absentee ballots. And again, following this idea that the state's lawsuit was premature, the conservative majority wrote in the order, quote, if the Postal Service's final rule harms the states, they may challenge that rule. And literally two days after the Supreme Court issued this order, the USPS published their new final rule, amending the mailing standards regarding the transmission of mail-in or absentee ballots for federal elections.

Quote, the final rule introduces new mail peace preparation requirements and data reporting standards for federal ballot mail that must be satisfied prior to presenting outbound federal ballot mail for acceptance into the mail stream, unquote. As outlined in Trump's executive order, the Postal Service's final rule would require states use new standardized mail-in ballot envelope designs to be compatible with automated processing, display a consistent election mail logo, and a unique, intelligent mail barcode. But the rule also introduced a new digital, quote, federal ballot mail portal that state and local election officials would have to use to administer. absentee ballots. Not only would this portal be how state officials certified the design of their standardized envelopes, but election officials would also have to upload the name and address of each absentee or mail-in voter, as found on the outbound federal ballot mail envelope, the issuing state,

and the intelligent mail barcode. This data would have to be submitted to the portal, quote, prior to presenting an outbound federal ballot mailing for acceptance. Rather than the 60-day deadline in Trump's executive order, the Postal Service's final rule recommends states upload this voter data into the portal at least 30 days before the election. This, quote, flexible 30-day timeline accommodates variations in state law, unquote. But importantly, this voter data must, to be submitted to this new digital portal before the Postal Service will accept any mail-in ballots.

Quote, there should be minimal to no delay between portal upload and a mailer's ability to present the mailing for acceptance. The Postal Service will generally not accept outbound federal ballot mailings unless compliance with the new rules standards has been verified, unquote. This new final rule did state that the Postal Service would not play, quote, any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rules, or counting ballots. But the rule also states, quote, portal data will also be available for verification purposes on a nationwide basis, unquote. If some of that just sounds confusing, that's because it is. The implementation of Trump's executive order in this final rule

was not very clear at all, did not follow proper protocol, and resulted in whistleblowers from USPS coming forward with concerns about the implementation of this final rule. And though the Supreme Court stayed one injunction blocking the implementation of the executive order, a separate temporary restraining order

prevented certain sections of this final rule from immediately, going into effect. The published final rule says that the Postal Service is ready to immediately implement these new standards in preparation for the 2026 election as soon as all of the lower court injunctions are lifted. But a few days after the rule was published, a coalition of 23 states, again, file a lawsuit as instructed by the Supreme Court, and the same district court judge issued a new preliminary injunction. And then on September 13th, a second federal judge

also blocked the Postal Service's newly adopted final rule. Trump appointee Judge Carl Nichols found that the Postal Service lacked the authority to require states submit a list of eligible voters to this online portal and only transmit ballots to voters verified on the portal. Judge Nichols wrote that if the rule was implemented, there would be a, quote, increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections, unquote. And then just a day later, the Supreme Court issued a shadow docket ruling, denying the Trump administration's request to lift the first injunction blocking the implementation of the Postal Services for.

final rule, finding that, quote, the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge. And this appeared to be a seven-two ruling with Samuel Alito penning a dissent, which was joined by Clarence Thomas. Though Brett Kavanaugh wrote a one paragraph concurring opinion, agreeing to let the injunction against the rule remain, though he suggested that the Postal Service may have the authority to implement the rule in the future, just not in the two months prior to an election, stating, quote, in my view, based on the briefing the court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority. But applying the rule in the 26 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act,

because state and local officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections. For that reason, I concur in the denial of the application for stay, unquote. We'll come back to the future implications of this ruling at the end of the episode. But first, here's some ads. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello! My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the last.

free IHIR radio app. Gets the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing. Right on your screen. Cheers.

Open the free IHR radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. I'm Melissa Jeltson and in my new podcast what happened to her, I'm bringing you new stories and conversations every week. Stories about women whose deaths were too quickly ruled as suicide. She was starting to get worried and get scared for her safety. Stories of survival. The only difference between me and her, frankly, was a little bit of luck,

because by all rights, I should be dead. Cases that everyone else called closed. They can't convict her, right? She has so much evidence. These stories all start in the same place, with a woman failed by a system that didn't believe her, that didn't protect her, that didn't see her. No child should ever experience that. And we were babies.

She did all of these brave things and came out and spoke about it and he got a year. You never know who that devil is because he's wearing in disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. Listen to what happened to her on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my God, Lexi. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Di Giulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not going to get anywhere fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business.

And I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Liar. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I don't really care. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed.

And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own. economic interest and they complained about the very thing to receive. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered.

I went off, I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all going to scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. 12 seats, those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going hard in the south now. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Every case has a story. Every victim has a voice. But will it be heard? I mean, it's he grace. On crime stories, we go beyond headlines to examine evidence. challenge the story we're fed and pursue justice for victims and their families. Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. Hope you join us. I'll see you there, friend. Okay, we are back. Restricting mail-in

voting and this final rule from the Postal Service is only one half of Trump's executive order. The other concerns the creation of state citizenship lists to verify voters. The federal government does not have a centralized registry of citizens. But since last year, DHS has been trying to retrofit something called the Save System, not to be confused with the Save Act, though both aim to suppress voters. but the DHS has been trying to expand this SAVE system so it can be used to verify large batches of voters by integrating data from other agencies like the State Department

and the Social Security Administration. Save, in this case, stands for systematic alien verification for entitlements. It was created in the 80s to verify the citizenship and immigration status of people applying for public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. In March of 2025, Trump signed a different executive order titled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections, which instructed DHS to put new systems into place to allow state and local authorities to verify the citizenship status of those registered to vote and directed the Social Security Administration to make their records available to DHS for that purpose.

So DHS began modifying the saved system by incorporating confidential data from the Social Security Administration and altering the system to allow authorities to conduct bulk searches of multiple individuals at once. To date, 27 states already used the save system to verify voters. and last year, some states began testing the newly modified database. After Trump signed this election integrity order last year, voting rights organizations sued and a district court blocked the order, finding that the overhauled save system, quote, trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a matter that threatens the sacred right to vote.

But the Trump administration went to the source. Supreme Court, asking them to lift the district court's injunction, alleging that the government faced irreparable harm if they weren't allowed to use the save system to purge voter rolls. Without a full briefing or oral argument, the conservative majority ruled 6'3 granting the stay, clearing the way for Trump to implement the new safe system and allow DHS to purge voter rolls. I talked about this a little bit in an executive disorder episode a few weeks ago. In the lawsuit that first prevented the government from using this newly modified save system, the plaintiffs alleged that the integration of SSA, Social Security Administration data,

violates multiple privacy protections, and that the use of the data to purge voter rules risks irreparable harm to voters who are mistakenly removed from voter rolls due to inaccurate or out-of-date information in the databases that save is using. And this harm is not just hypothetical. When Texas began testing out the newly modified save system last year, it had an error rate of over 20%. And part of why the save system is so inaccurate, especially now that it's pulling

from Social Security data is because Social Security Administration data does not necessarily reflect someone's current immigration or citizenship status. For example, I was given in SSN as a teenager after my family immigrated to the U.S. But because I later acquired U.S. citizenship through one of my parents, my social security number does not correspond to my citizenship status. And I often have to verify my citizenship status with a passport. It's also important to keep in mind that Social Security Administration data is not just Social Security numbers, but also, quote, names, dates and places of birth, citizenship indicators, death records, and information obtained while processing requests for Social Security numbers, per the Supreme Court. So,

if the Save System flags someone or a search comes up inconclusive, voters could be required to take additional affirmative steps to prove their citizenship or naturalization, possibly within a very short window, or risk being removed from the voter rules and unable to exercise their right to vote. In the short, unsigned opinion, the conservative majority writes, quote, if the modified save program is unable to confirm that an individual is a citizen, the agency is required to contact the individual and request that he provide proof of citizenship to register or remain registered to vote, unquote. In her dissent, Justice Jackson echoed the concerns of the plaintiffs,

that the, quote, staleness of Social Security Administration's citizenship records risked disenfranchising recently naturalized U.S. citizens. And again, this is not some sort of hypothetical, harm. According to a ProPublica report from last February, quote, DHS has had to correct information provided to at least five states after save misidentified some voters as non-citizens. And per Jackson's dissent, in Texas, one woman had her voter registration revoked without her knowledge, and two more had to provide proof of citizenship to maintain registered voter. status. I really don't want to gloss over the fact that already in Texas, a U.S. citizen was removed

from voter registration because of the save system without her knowledge. She did not know that this happened. Imagine you walk up to the polling site ready to vote, only to learn that you've been removed from the voter rolls because of DHS's janky verification system. That is actually irreparable harm, but the majority opinion of the Supreme Court just didn't consider this harm posed to lawful voters, but rather focused on the harms the government could purportedly suffer if they aren't allowed to use the revamped save system. The bulk of the majority opinion focuses on defending the legality of DHS using what is otherwise protected confidential data from the Social Security Administration.

In contrast with the district court, the Supreme Court agreed with the government's argument that a provision of the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility Act, Section 1373, actually already granted DHS permission to access confidential SSA data. Thus, the use of that data in the SA program does not violate the privacy protections

within the Social Security Act or the Privacy Act. And I apologize for this getting a little jargony, but I cannot emphasize the magnitude of this enough. Section 1373 has never before been invoked this way and poses massive threats to privacy. I will lightly paraphrase for clarity 8 U.S.C. 1373, quote, notwithstanding any other provision of federal, state, or local law,

no person, agency, government entity, or official may prohibit, or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending or receiving information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual to DHS, unquote. Now, because of that first bit, unquote, notwithstanding other laws, the Supreme Court majority found that Section 1373, quote, likely supersedes restrictions on disclosure elsewhere in the code.

And thus, DHS is authorized to request, receive, and send otherwise confidential information from the Social Security Administration. What the majority is doing here is they're combining that notwithstanding clause with 1373 subsection C, which, quote, requires DHS. to respond to inquiries from state and local agencies seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual, unquote. But as written, that subsection does not require

DHS to respond to requests with confidential data from other agencies. It doesn't entitle them to otherwise protected data. In her dissent, Jackson summarizes what the majority's opinion here is. is. Quote, as the majority sees things, Congress's prohibiting interference with the disclosure of information regarding citizenship status to DHS necessarily authorizes DHS to request and receive that information from the SSA, regardless of whether some other law prohibits disclosure. The majority

thus treats Section 1373 as essentially overriding the limit. that privacy laws impose on the sharing of citizenship information with DHS. Unquote. Now, Jackson calls the majority's interpretation, quote, implausible, and accuses them of, quote, misreading the statutory text in a few important ways, mainly that these provisions don't empower government agencies to take any affirmative action to overrule privacy protections, but rather they bar government entities, officials, persons, or agencies from unlawfully prohibiting or restricting the exchange of citizenship information with DHS.

To quote Jackson, quote, these provisions do not affirmatively grant any power, nor do they override any explicit statutory limits on information sharing. Rather, both provisions bar government entities or employees from interfering with otherwise lawful exchanges of citizenship information, notwithstanding that such interference may be permitted under some other law. When a law imposes an express restriction on disclosure, it is that law, not an entity, official, person, or agency, that is doing the, quote, prohibiting or, quote, restricting. In the majority's opinion, they have a little footnote responding to Jackson's claim here, quote, the distinction the dissent draws between laws and those tasked with enforcing

them is illusory. Prohibitions necessarily include invoking a law to deny a request for or transfer of such information, unquote. But this snarky little remark ignores that other provisions in the illegal immigration reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act place, quote, strict limits on what information SSA can disclose. And Jackson notes that those limits would be pointless if Section 1373 supersedes any and all privacy protections, as claimed by the government and the Supreme Court majority. To quote Jackson,

there is no reason to believe that Congress meant to repeal laws that would otherwise prohibit federal agencies from disclosing citizenship information. Nothing in 1373 authorizes the modified save system or overrides the provisions of the Social Security Act and the Privacy Act, unquote. To bolster her argument, Jackson also notes that Bill Clinton's Office of Legal Counsel shared this same interpretation of Section 1373 all the way back in 1999, writing that the section does, quote, not clearly invest government effigernation. or entities with the affirmative authority to disclose information and circumstances where they would otherwise be prohibited from doing so by a federal statute, unquote. And I go over all of these details, not to be confusing or annoying, but because, again, this is

a shadow docket ruling, meaning that this case will likely be heard again by the Supreme Court, and some of these justifications may matter in the future. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHare radio app.

Gets the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing. Right on your screen.

Cheers. Open the free IHare Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. I'm Melissa Jeltson, and in my new podcast, what happened to her, I'm bringing you new stories and conversations every week. Stories about women whose deaths were too quickly ruled a suicide. She was starting to get worried and get scared for her safety. Stories of survival.

The only difference between me and her, frankly, was a little bit of luck. Because by all rights, I should be dead. Cases that everyone else called closed. They can't convict her, right? Like, she has so much evidence. These stories all start in the same place. With a woman failed by a system that didn't believe her, that didn't protect her, that didn't see her. No child should ever experience that.

And we were babies. She did all of these brave things and came out and spoke about it, and he got a year. You never know who that devil is because he's wearing the sky. Sometimes it's a police uniform. Listen to what happened to her on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my God, Lexi. We have a new podcast.

It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Youanu. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived at all. I'm not going to get anyone fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. And I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how much. accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Liar. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I don't really care. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interest, and they complain about the very thing to receive. It's raw.

I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off. I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all going to scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network.

12 seats, those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going hard in the South now. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts. Every case has a story.

Every victim has a voice. But will it be heard? I mean, is he great. on crime stories, we go beyond headlines to examine evidence, challenge the story we're fed, and pursue justice for victims and their families. Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. Hope you join us.

I'll see you there, friend. So as bad and frankly bullshit as this ruling is, according to Jackson, it will quote, likely have minimal short-term impact. And that's because the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from, quote, systematically removing the names of ineligible voters from their rules in the 90 days prior to any primary or general election. But this doesn't mean that it will have no impact on the midterms,

because the government is still allowed to use the new save system to conduct, quote, individualized inquiries per the majority. Jackson writes that states will, quote, at most, conduct individualized voter rule maintenance using the modified save system prior to the midterms. But at the end of her dissent, she stresses, quote, the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the non-existent harm that the government experiences

when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take. For 2026, voter intimidation remains the biggest threat to elections. Whether that's coming from Mike Rogers' personal goons or some federal force near polling sites, be that National Guard or ICE, which DHS officials have said won't patrol the polls, but told the Associated Press, quote, if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.

With DHS also saying they are, quote, laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens. Beyond voter intimidation, the Trump administration and Republicans may also attempt to delegitimize election results based on allegations of fraud. And this is yet another way the new save system could be of some use. Given its high error rate, it's quite simple to inflate the number of votes that are under suspicion of being fraudulently cast if the Trump administration gains access to cast ballots or voting machines and tries to audit the results. They don't even need to prove fraud.

They just need to create an error of uncertainty to manufacture a political crisis, and the save system can provide that uncertainty. But what really concerns me is what could happen after the midterms in the two years before the 2028 election. There will be enough time for the constitutionality of the Postal Services final rule, with the digital federal ballot mail portal and vague verification requirements, to be fully litigated and potentially implemented. Supreme Court justices Elito and Thomas have already made it clear that they want the rule

implemented, and Kavanaugh seems sympathetic. Without the time constraint of an impending election, where the rest of the conservative justices stand on questions of constitutionality, delegating election authority, and separation of powers as they relate to the Postal Service's final rule is not yet clear. And whenever they decide, I do want to echo the opinion of Trump appointee Judge Nichols that the USPS final rule poses a, quote, increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted. If the Republicans lose the midterms, which seems likely, Trump's general power may be more limited.

But that may also result in his efforts being tailored to a few select issues that he can direct his full executive power towards. And the election issue has been a quite personal issue for President Trump. I can't see him doing anything other than doubling down on implement. the full extent of these executive orders, including the, quote, state citizenship lists. But in terms of something that can immediately happen right after the midterms, literally the day after the election, states can start using DHS's save system to purge voter rolls en masse by quote-unquote verifying large batches of voters.

The only thing preventing that right now is the 90-day prohibition on the quote-unquote systemic removal before an election. On the question of saves legality, the Supreme Court's conservative majority wrote that the challengers are unlikely to prevail on the merits of their claims. Even though Jackson points out in her dissent that the majority opinion breaks

from previous interpretations of federal law and plainly misreads the statutory text. Reversing their decision may require an entirely new. Supreme Court. Retrofitting the save system to conduct bulk searches of potentially ineligible voters is one part of a much larger strategy. Since 2025, the Trump administration has tried to gain access to state's voter rules, with the DOJ suing over 30 states for not complying with federal requests. Over a dozen states, mostly Republican-controlled states, have complied and handed over

their voter registration lists. For states that have not complied, the Trump administration has employed multiple tactics to try to gain access to their voting records, including by just seizing them physically, like in Georgia. We don't know if this was done with Save specifically, but this past summer, DHS notified the state of Nevada

that they had almost 16,000 non-citizens on their voter rolls. then DHS said that they were able to confirm at least 185 individual cases of non-citizens registered to vote. But when state election officials looked into these cases, they found that every one of those 185 voters was actually a U.S. citizen. Meanwhile, in Texas, save falsely flagged over 500 voters as non-citizens. Simply put, having DHS try to determine the eligibility of U.S. citizen voters doesn't seem like a good idea, and it doesn't seem like they are very good at it.

Except, of course, this is precisely what DHS is setting out to do, remove as many people from the voter rolls as possible, whether or not they are actually eligible to vote. The new save system would not only disenfranchise eligible voters by removing them from voter rolls, potentially even without their knowledge, like in Texas, but also in the age of ICE mass deportations, the prospect that you as a voter

could be investigated or scrutinized by DHS based on your name being flagged by some database could absolutely dissuade U.S. citizens born or naturalized from registering to vote and exercising their right to vote, especially if they live with or are in proximity to undocumented immigrants. And that fear, that intimidation, that is part of the point. If Stephen Miller can't strip naturalized to citizens of their right to vote,

this is his compromise. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, Coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Melissa Jeltson, host of the What Happened to Her podcast. We're kicking off the season with the Sandra Birchmore story, a case the police rode off as a suicide in a snowstorm.

Her family never bought it, and the man they suspected wore a badge. You never know who that devil is because he's wearing in disguise. Sometimes it's a police uniform. And you can get access to all episodes 100% ad-free with an I-Heart True Crime Plus subscription, exclusively on Apple Podcasts, available only to IHeart True Crime Plus subscribers. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for IHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast.

It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Youanu. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Di Giulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed.

There should not be a single law enforcement agency. It does not have body cameras. It's real. Black farmers have been under attack. This is just the latest example of them just slapping DEI on anything. It's raw. And I'm sitting here going, they are playing y'all for fools. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network.

And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your podcasts. You broke me. You do not deserve happiness. I'm Andrea Gunning. On this season of betrayal, Carl thought he was living a normal, drama-free life until the messages started. Someone's not going to make it out of this alive. Every piece of evidence pointed to the wrong guy.

He was not going to stop unless we stopped him. Listen to Betrayal Season 6 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On recent episodes of the Questlove show, I chat with Jojo about her. Her music and Wallo 267 about his story, everything in between. Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave it out or too little too late or baby to you. Oh, no.

And I'm going to be like, okay, cool. Check out my conversation with Jojo, Wolo 267, and more on the Questlove show. Listen to the Questlove show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Peace. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.