Access to Elections Under Pressure as Trump Administration Targets Voting Infrastructure, Protections

Proposed Legislation and Executive Orders Trigger Alarm for Ballot Box and Broadband Security

California Senator Alex Padilla warns of voter suppression and speaks out for election integrity, picture here on the floor of the Senate April 30, 2025. | Credit: CSPAN

Just 100 days into President Trump’s second term, a wave of new legislation and executive orders is triggering alarm over the future of American elections — from the ballot box to the broadband lines that safeguard them.

At the center of the maelstrom is the controversial Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the House in April and now looms in the Senate. The bill imposes strict federal voter identification and citizenship documentation requirements — changes that critics warn could disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans. California Senator Alex Padilla, who previously served as the state’s Secretary of State, has emerged as a leading opponent of the measure.

“If Donald Trump and Republicans had it their way, they would change the rules on how somebody could register to vote that would make it harder for eligible citizens to register,” Padilla told The Independent. “The examples we can easily point to are things like a woman who chose to change her last name when she got married — all of a sudden her ID does not match her birth certificate, which may make it harder to register to vote and be able to cast a ballot in elections.”

Padilla warned that the voters affected do not end at married women, but also members of the military as well as immigrants. Active-duty military members, especially those stationed overseas or between bases, could find it nearly impossible to update their voter information under the proposed law.

“Half the country does not have a current active passport,” Padilla said. “It would be voter suppression in disguise for no real purpose. The pretext of a lot of illegal voting in the United States is simply not true.”

The bill’s focus on non-citizen voting — which is already illegal under federal law — continues to draw criticism. When asked why this issue keeps resurfacing, Padilla said: “Because Trump has been failing as president. You look at his inability to reach peace deals in Ukraine, you see how he has shrunk the economy. So when all else fails for Donald Trump, he attacks immigrants.”

Expanding voter access has been a focus for Padilla, who is California’s first Latino U.S. Senator. As the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and a former elections administrator himself, he finds himself on the front lines of what many are calling the most critical battle over American voting rights in a generation.

A new bill introduced by Padilla — called the Defending America’s Future Elections Act, which was joined by 11 other senators — seeks to repeal Trump’s executive order expanding federal control over voter data. Padilla’s bill would block the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive registration information and has drawn wide support from election integrity groups. Padilla previously led a group of 14 senators in calling on Trump to rescind that same executive order.

Meanwhile, concerns extend beyond voter registration.

The computer systems, networks, and data that underpin U.S. elections were guarded from interference by a little known but important agency known as CISA, which stands for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Set up by Trump in 2018, the president nonetheless fired its director, Chris Krebs, soon after Krebs stated the November 2020 election had been secure; in other words, that Biden had won fair and square.

CISA has now suspended all election-specific activities, Krebs’s time at CISA is under investigation, and funding was terminated for the cyber-threat-prevention branch called the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC). “Donald Trump, for whatever his reasons are, I’m skeptical, is trying to take away those very protections,” Padilla said. “He is either reassigning or firing the very workers that we have tasked with securing our elections and protecting our democracy.”

A CISA spokesperson clarified in an email to The Independent that while EI-ISAC was shuttered, the decision was made by the Center for Internet Security (CIS), which still receives federal funding. The agency emphasized that general cybersecurity support remains available to election offices, but its internal review of election protection programs will not be released publicly. EI-ISAC had served as a key source of cyber threat intelligence and emergency response for local election offices.

Adding to the unease is a proposed effort to move the U.S. Postal Service under the Department of Commerce, which Padilla and his colleagues call a threat to mail-in voting. In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Padilla and six other senators called the move “deeply misguided” and warned it could “undermine public confidence in the handling of election mail.”

According to the USPS’s December 2024 post-election report, USPS handled over 99 million ballots nationwide during the general election. USPS did not respond to a request for comment.

“Vote by mail is more than just a convenience,” Padilla said. “To put the timeliness of election materials being delivered in jeopardy … that’s another potential form of voter suppression.”

The combined effect of these policy moves — voter ID laws, mail delays, cyber protections stripped — has triggered concern across civil rights groups, watchdog organizations, and former election officials. And while Senate Democrats are currently unified in opposition to the SAVE Act, Padilla says that they must remain so to keep the measure from surfacing.

“Our democracy is not a spectator sport,” he said. “If you care about any issue — climate, reproductive rights, immigrant protections — weigh in.”

Padilla encourages citizens to stay active: attend town halls, call their representatives, and support grassroots organizations. “We cannot give up hope,” he said. “We can all do our piece as we prepare for the next election.”