Federal Government Declares Radical "Pulse" Requirement for Voting

Democrats and civil-rights groups warn this could create “confusion.” (I am not making that up.)

The ways in which Donald Trump is trying to destroy democracy are both diabolical and endless. I mean, firing federal employees who refuse to show up for work. Asking agencies to account for how they spend taxpayer money. Failing to uphold the important national tradition of judging people by race in order to finally end judging people by race. Continuing to endorse the fringe scientific theory known as “male and female.” Playing toxic Village People tunes at rallies. Successfully dodging three assassination attempts. As tyrannical as these things clearly are, his latest authoritarian move may be the most sinister of all: POTUS is now moving full-steam-ahead with his plan to stop dead people from voting in federal elections.

In March, Trump signed an executive order requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and ordering alphabet agencies to help states remove ineligible voters from election databases. This week, the Associated Press reported—with the solemn gravity normally reserved for incoming asteroids—that at least 67 million election records have already been run through federal registries in an effort to identify noncitizens and deceased voters before the midterms. Tens of thousands were flagged for further review. Yes, humanity mapped the human genome before we figured out how to cross-reference voter rolls with obituaries.

The media’s response, hilariously, is essentially: “Okay fine, maybe there are hundreds of thousands of dead voters on the books, but statistically speaking that’s only a tiny percentage.” Which is comforting right up until you remember that modern American elections are now routinely decided by margins approximately equivalent to the number of people waiting in line at a Buc-ee’s restroom.

Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by about 10,000 votes. Georgia by fewer than 12,000. Wisconsin by around 20,000. Donald Trump won Michigan in 2016 by exactly 10,704. The 2000 presidential election was effectively decided by 537 ballots and one deeply exhausted Supreme Court. So yes, technically speaking, 384,000 aggressively civic cadavers scattered across the country may represent “less than 1%” of registrations. And only a tiny percentage of the Titanic was damaged when it nicked that iceberg.

“But something about fascist Orange Man destroying democracy,” cry Democrats, activist groups, and civil-rights coalitions, who are horrified that eligible citizens could accidentally get swept up in the process. They're now in federal court demanding that Trump's “power grab” be blocked because—among other terrifying possibilities—states could soon receive lists of voting-age citizens from Social Security and Homeland Security databases to help verify eligibility. A judge has already suggested it’s not clear anyone is being “irreparably harmed” by the administration… compiling data it already has.

To be fair, clerical screwups are possible. Government record systems are held together with duct tape, expired passwords, and a 1997 Dell desktop running Windows XP somewhere beneath the Pentagon. Mistakes are inevitable. Just probably not in the hundreds of thousands.

According to these opponents, enforcement would create “maximum confusion,” become a “nightmare for election officials,” and “erode confidence in elections.” Call me old-fashioned, but I would have guessed that discovering thousands of dead people and enthusiastic out-of-town guests making their presidential preference known every four years would be the thing that might erode confidence in elections.

ELECTION OFFICIAL 1: We found duplicate registrations, fake addresses, names that don’t match any U.S. citizen database, 114 people who died during Obama’s second term, and a family of 77 living inside a Buffalo Wild Wings in Dayton.

ELECTION OFFICIAL 2: I don’t see how traumatizing election workers like this helps anyone.

One lawyer warned the court that voters could be harmed if they are mistakenly removed and don’t discover the error in time to cast a ballot. I’ll point out here that the midterms are six months away. If the government accidentally categorizes you as a corpse sometime between now and November, I feel reasonably confident you’ll have enough time to upload a utility bill and gently clarify that you remain among the living.

Contrary to what your MSNBC-addicted aunt may believe, conservatives are not claiming hordes of zombies are shuffling into polling stations demanding Marlboro Lights and absentee ballots. The issue is less Beetlejuice and more somebody forgot to—or opted not to—update the spreadsheet. Inaccurate citizen archives can be exploited by political operatives, ballot harvesters, dishonest relatives, or anyone else who discovers that Grandma has maintained a surprisingly active voting record despite having spent the last fifteen years in a mausoleum.

This is not a remotely controversial concept in any other area of life. Banks remove dead customers from active accounts. The Social Security Administration (ostensibly—unless there’s massive fraud, ahem) removes dead recipients from benefit rolls. Insurance companies become extremely interested in whether you’re still alive the moment money is involved. But asking election officials to periodically verify that registered voters are biologically functional citizens has somehow become a harbinger of martial law.

The funniest part is that the people insisting voter-roll maintenance is dangerous authoritarian overreach are simultaneously assuring us that American elections are more secure than Fort Knox. That’s sort of like a liquor store insisting carding customers destroys confidence in alcohol sales.

One Texan quoted in the AP story—a naturalized citizen who’d been voting for years—was temporarily flagged because his passport had expired while officials were verifying his status. Sure, frustrating. But that’s not evidence that voter verification is dangerous or inherently flawed. It’s evidence that Washington—the same bureaucracy that oversees our DMVs and designs our tax returns—cannot successfully merge databases without accidentally declaring at least a few people dead.

Is anyone actually surprised by this?

The more serious concern—and Jenna’s Side readers already recognize that there is one—isn’t about dead or illegal voters at all. It’s about what a fully integrated national voter-verification database looks like in ten years, under whoever happens to be running the show then. A government that can confirm you’re alive and eligible to participate in elections is also a government that knows exactly who voted, when, where, and for whom. That infrastructure doesn’t expire when an administration does. It’s inherited. And the people who build these systems rarely end up operating them for long.

Of course, worrying about the feds knowing whether you’re alive is almost quaint. They also know your income, your address, your prescription history, your travel patterns, your Spotify favorites, and precisely how many times you watched the same episode of The Office this year. The Social Security Administration, the IRS, the DMV, your health insurance company, your phone, and at least fourteen apps you gave location access to in 2019 and forgot about have been quietly assembling a fairly complete portrait of your existence for years.

Allowing election officials to confirm that all voters still possess a pulse probably won’t be the precise moment America tumbles into a dystopian surveillance hellscape. That’s what the kill switches are for.

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A note to new readers and faithful regulars: Earlier this month, my family said goodbye to my wonderful, one-of-a-kind father-in-law. Today we fly to California to celebrate his long and enviable life. I’ll be recycling a few older posts for the rest of the week; hopefully at least one is new-to-you. I appreciate your patience and prayers as we gather to grieve and prepare to navigate this next chapter.

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