this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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  • Widespread Errors: An expanded federal tool for identifying noncitizens on voter rolls is making persistent mistakes, particularly in assessing citizenship for people born outside the U.S.
  • Banned From Voting: In Missouri, state officials told local clerks to temporarily ban flagged voters from casting ballots, even though hundreds turned out to be citizens.
  • Texas Confusion: As errors emerged in SAVE data, local clerks said the state hadn’t provided them with clear guidance and worried about disenfranchising eligible citizens.
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[–] CobraChicken3000@lemmy.ca 175 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's a feature, not a bug.

[–] Virtvirt588@lemmy.world 66 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is how political cleansing begins. Once the system is turned on, voting for anything slightly left will cast you as a criminal of the state.

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 32 points 1 week ago

Certainly they won't use years of collected metadata from social networks about political sentiment, right? ...right?

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago

This has happened all over there US already. Someone challenges your right to vote and it's your job to prove your eligibility. Can't show up to your appointment? No ID? No bills going to that address? Only have a PO Box address? No voting for you!

[–] danekrae@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And still, americans believe the democrats will win... Even after everything in the past, everything being said in the present, they're still only going to protest.

[–] ruekk@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (4 children)

What do you want Americans to do? Start an open insurrection? Do you really realize how many thousand of people would die the instant a semi-armed civilian led force tried to fight back?

[–] Tehbaz@lemmy.wtf 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's a case of die standing up or on your knees in a 'big beautiful' concentration camp. A peaceful general strike and spending boycott would be a start, but nobody seems to be willing to make that sacrifice until it's too late.

[–] Attacker94@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

What do you mean by spending boycott, if your thinking about the corporations that are enabling this administration I can agree on sentiment but not on effectiveness, the involved corporations are already propped up by nonexistent money, removing the real money won't have any noticeable effects other than accelerating the economic collapse, which I will grant you is not necessarily a bad play, but it is not quite as cut and dry.

If you are talking about tax evasion, I would highly doubt that that would end well, especially with the propaganda machine in full swing

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

People want them to do literally anything at all

The perception is you're taking it lying down

[–] KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

I'm genuinely losing my mind at this take. For the last 13 months we've seen thousands of human people walked to their death -- watched planes of human beings take off and return empty; and still half of the comments I see that suggest taking action beyond peaceful marches and waiting for the 2026 midterms get this "smarter than thou" smug response from people, some claiming to be 50501 liberals. Sometimes it's, like, 15 lines and a song quote; with the occasional ALL CAPS "DO NOT TAKE THE BAIT".

People are dying, folks; now. Come to reality. A clash with ICE, especially in the first months when they were untrained and barely armed, wouldn't have accelerated anything--because we didn't have that and yet we are here. This mythical "Insurrection Act" invocation wouldn't have caused the terrorism we are witnessing now; nor the deployments in LA or Portland. Yes, people will die in clashes with the state; but what's the alternative? Letting people die in raids from the state? We watched camera footage with video of pro-Palestinian activists getting disappeared. We've seen masked agents killing hundreds of people across the states, every month. We've seen them raid neighborhoods, and pull people into vans. We've seen our police watch, do nothing, then arrest the bystanders for "causing a disturbance". Every. Day.

The part of me that is clinging onto some partial hope in human nature wants to blame this widespread passivity propaganda for the reason it took a year to have the resistance effort in Minneapolis, which there had been nothing like until that point. Really, though, I sense the real reason behind these arguments and the wider inaction, is that the targets of ICE have been predominantly people of color, and mainly Hispanic folks. So, too, were the kids in cages through the first Trump and Biden administrations.

I understand that Holocaust poem in a depth that I just didn't understand before. I understand the Holocaust documentaries and testimonies I've watched in a depth I hadn't gotten before.

You aren't outsmarting the Republicans by standing back as they kill thousands; tens-of-thousands; hundreds-of-thousands of people of color. You're giving them exactly what they wanted: A “second American Revolution”; [white]-bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If you think things are already as bad as they can get, then you lack perspective.

There's still a chance of electoral victory. Progressives across the country are having punishing victories. Don't throw away that momentum by being too trigger-happy. People are waking up, don't put them back to sleep.

If the republicans rig or steal the election (which they certainly intend to, but it's not yet certain how successful they'll be), then all gloves are off and the third and fifth sentences of the Declaration of Independence kicks in.

Until that point, the fourth sentence still applies.

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[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How many people have you gone out and killed? It sure sounds like you are imploring people to take to the streets and violently attack the government. What have you done in support of this goal?

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[–] qaeta@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Fewer than will if they continue to do nothing.

[–] infinitevalence@discuss.online 54 points 1 week ago (1 children)

thats the whole point, oops, you cant vote, sucks you were voting against us anyway....

[–] VivianRixia@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

But also, oops, you cant vote, sucks that you were going to vote for us anyway

[–] Armand1@lemmy.world 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Given that only 22 noncitizens over the course of like 10 years (can't remember the exact statistic) tried to vote, the way to get the best accuracy would be to just hard code the answer to "yes, they can vote". Then you get over 99.99% accuracy.

[–] pageflight@piefed.social 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

From the article:

At least seven states with a total of about 35 million registered voters have publicly reported the results of running their voter rolls through the system. Those searches have identified roughly 4,200 people — about 0.01% of registered voters — as noncitizens. This aligns with previous findings that noncitizens rarely register to vote.

[–] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm not even sure what incentive they would have. We already have a huge problem with citizens not voting because they think their vote won't change anything. Is anyone going to think "I'm going to risk going to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for me to spend my free time filling out a ballot box which will have a 0.000001% chance of having any effect"?

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 42 points 1 week ago

As designed.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 33 points 1 week ago

'Accident'. 🙄

[–] starblursd@lemmy.zip 28 points 1 week ago

"mistakenly" flags democrat registered voters? I can only assume

"It's only rigged when we lose" - maga

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Extra mistakes in blue states I’m sure.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

In large minority districts of entrenched Republican enclaves

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Turns out, they were just using this meme as their requirements document.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

You know how satire works, right? It's based on existing reality.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 21 points 1 week ago

"Mistakenly"

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 week ago

That was always the plan

[–] Emi@ani.social 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

As European I'm so confused by this. You just show your state ID and that's it, they check on paper that you voted, then you put your voting papers into the box.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They just made it so not all state IDs count.

[–] Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

All animals are equal, some are more equal

[–] Pacattack57@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

You’re are rightly confused. This is all theatrics by the far right to penalize liberal areas. Areas they deem as high risk of fraud or illegals, in other words left leaning states and counties.

[–] Ghostie@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 week ago

“Mistakenly”. Bugs are the kind of things that can easily explain away intent to mess stuff up.

[–] TwodogsFighting@lemdro.id 14 points 1 week ago

"Mistakes".

Cue Ron Howard voiceover.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Voting Blue? No Vote For You!

[–] Pacattack57@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Seems like it’s working as they intended then.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Repeatedly checking the tool results in massive numbers of mistakes.

If you check the same person twice, the odds of a false positive increase exponentially.

[–] Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

So if it says I can't vote because I'm not a us citizen and my state bans me from voting for it, am I off the hook on taxes?

No taxation without representation, right?

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Logically yes, but these are not logical times.

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 9 points 1 week ago

The source of the bad data was a Department of Homeland Security tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE.

Once used mostly to check immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits, SAVE has undergone a dramatic expansion over the last year at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has long falsely claimed that millions of noncitizens lurk on state voter rolls, tainting American elections.

Why is the Department of Homeland Security in charge of a program to check if people can get benefits?

[–] darthsundhaft@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago

They're probably using AI...

[–] Rhoeri@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago

As it was intended to do.

[–] LemmyBruceLeeMarvin@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

"mistakenly"

[–] codapine@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Task failed successfully.

[–] LibertyLizard@quokk.au 5 points 1 week ago

It's almost like there's almost zero non-citizens voting or something...

Not that there's even a need to prevent them from voting.

[–] rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

That's ok, so does the government

Isn't that the point? Ensure there aren't that many voters? I'd say it works as I tended.

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