The White House is pushing for a cleanup of voter rolls in various states before the midterm elections on November 3. This comes after reports indicated that many non-citizens were on the rolls, with some even voting—now facing prosecution in dozens of cases.
Under the Trump administration’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” the Department of Homeland Security reviewed voter rolls from at least 47 states, as reported by Reuters. However, some officials feel that the progress is, well, not quite fast enough.
In a September 1 email leaked to the wire service, a DHS official suggested discussing the stalled progress with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Moreover, many non-citizens are being charged for voting illegally in past federal elections, including significant states like Pennsylvania.
Former President Trump has often emphasized that he lost the 2020 election due to voter fraud. When he returned to the White House, he attempted to implement tighter regulations for mail-in voting—an effort blocked by court rulings—and sought legislative support for stricter voter ID laws, which hasn’t materialized yet.
In a speech last July, Trump even accused China of unlawfully acquiring the voter information of 220 million Americans, suggesting they tried to influence elections during his first term and the 2020 election.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that around 30,000 non-citizens may have been added to voter rolls since 2000, mainly due to software errors related to the automatic registration of individuals applying for driver’s licenses illegally.
“The real narrative here is that, after years of media dismissal of non-citizen voting, recent arrests across the country are forcing acknowledgment that it indeed happens,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis remarked.
She urged Democrats to stop blocking the SAVE America Act, legislation designed to ensure voting rights for citizens only.
The Post previously highlighted that nearly all states have been automatically registering individuals to vote at DMVs and welfare offices without requiring proof of citizenship for years.
In Congress, Republicans have attempted to close this loophole through the SAVE America Act, but Senate Democrats have thwarted these efforts.
Interestingly, the Trump administration’s actions have led some Democratic leaders to admit that non-citizens have managed to register and vote illegally.
New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Mikie Sherrill acknowledged that 6,600 non-citizens were identified on the state’s voter rolls, with around 400 having voted illegally between June 2023 and June 2024.
Project Civica, a non-partisan accountability organization, estimates that over 10,000 non-citizens might be registered in New York.
In California, projections suggest there could be around 35,152 non-citizens registered, based on a preliminary review by DHS first reported by Fox News.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin noted in a July letter that approximately 190,832 non-citizens could be registered in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
Overall, the DHS concluded that around 278,000 non-citizens are registered to vote across the nation, although full details from its review have not been released.
According to Reuters, various federal agencies, including USCIS, DHS, and the Social Security Administration, have been collaborating to match voter rolls to data from federal databases.
Sometimes, DHS has had to buy information from data brokers to fill in gaps like missing birthdates, as indicated in the September 1 email.
Since 1996, federal prosecutors have charged at least 149 illegal immigrants with unlawful voting, with 20 of those cases occurring during Trump’s second term.
