U.S. to Let Florida Use Homeland Security Data for Voter Check The federal government has granted Florida election officials access to a database of noncitizen residents for use in Republican-backed efforts to remove people who are not American citizens from voter registration rolls. J Pat Carter/Associated Press Gov. Rick Scott of Florida had been pushing for access to the Homeland Security database. The decision, which came after efforts by the Obama administration to block access, was issued in a letter to Gov. Rick Scott's administration and made public on Saturday. Mr. Scott, along with the state's Republicans, had been pushing for months to gain access to the database, which is maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, arguing that it would allow for a more accurate review of voter lists. The effort is part of a broader push by Republicans in Florida and in other states to prevent voter fraud by expunging what they say are thousands of ineligible noncitizens from voter lists. Opponents of the Republican effort, who acknowledge that people who are not American citizens have no right to vote, have argued that the federal database, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, was never intended to be used for purging voter lists. They have also charged that the purge of voter lists could violate voters" rights laws and be used to discriminate against minorities. With so little time left before November's elections, they argue, anyone wrongfully purged from voter lists could be barred from voting anyway. In June, Florida election officials were forced to halt the search for illegally registered voters amid fears that the lists of suspected noncitizens were deemed outdated and inaccurate. But a few weeks later, a federal judge struck down a Justice Department request to halt the voter review indefinitely, and Mr. Scott has insisted that the review was directed solely at preventing ineligible voters from participating in coming elections, including a primary set for Aug. 14. In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Scott hailed the decision to grant access to the database as a "step in the right direction." "We've already confirmed that noncitizens have voted in past elections here in Florida," Mr. Scott said. Now that we have the cooperation of the Department of Homeland Security, our state can use the most accurate citizenship database in the nation to protect the integrity of Florida's election process. Florida is not the first state to gain access to the SAVE database. The letter granting Florida permission to use it, which was dated July 9, says that five counties in Arizona are now during so. The program provides immigration status information from more than 100 million records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the letter - signed by a Homeland Security official, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services - to verify the citizenship status of people registered to vote in Florida, officials must provide evidence that the person is indeed a noncitizen, like an alien number. Those numbers are typically given to people who are living in the country legally as noncitizens. Under federal law, such individuals are not permitted to vote. That restriction will prevent Florida from solely using driver's license information, as it did when the state compiled its initial list of 182,000 voters believed to be noncitizens. The SAVE database can provide no information on illegal immigrants who may have registered to vote. In a letter sent on Saturday to local election officials in Florida, Ken Detzner, Florida's secretary of state, said that voter verification using the SAVE database would begin as soon as a memorandum of agreement is signed with the Department of Homeland Security and election officials are trained to use it. "It is an unfortunate but now undeniable fact that Florida's voter rolls include a number of noncitizens," Mr. Detzner said. These ineligible registered voters must be removed to ensure the integrity of our elections. Robert Pear contributed reporting.