Trump and GOP test precedent with aggressive voter roll purges | CNN Politics

For decades, it’s generally been assumed that any mass purges of voter rolls had to be completed at least 90 days out from an election. But Republicans and the Trump administration are now testing the scope of the federal law that imposes that ban on “systematic” removal programs within three months of an election, as President Donald Trump pushes for more aggressive reviews of voter rolls for non-citizens and other ineligible voters. The Justice Department has launched a sprawling effort to obtain nearly every state’s voter registration file and to review those files for suspected non-citizens. For its review, the DOJ is using a federal immigration database tool known as SAVE – or the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements – which has shown itself prone to produce false positives. Some state election officials have indicated they want the freedom to remove names in the months or weeks before an election, but other election officials – along with voter advocates – are concerned that eligible voters are at risk of being disenfranchised with the ramp up in the purge programs, especially as Trump tries to get more involved. They say that the so-called “quiet