DHS Exposes Massive Non-Citizen Voter Registration, States Resist Efforts to Secure Elections
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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stands firm on alarming numbers of non-citizen voter registrations, but state officials from both parties push back, downplaying the threat and resisting federal efforts to ensure election integrity.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reaffirmed on Thursday the urgent warning that a staggering quarter-million non-citizens may be registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Despite the Department of Homeland Security’s letters to the states noting that these numbers are still being verified, the sheer scale of potential fraud is cause for national concern. In a letter to Pennsylvania, DHS revealed there could be as many as 14,576 non-citizens on the voter rolls, with 8,594 matches in its database, and called for state cooperation to verify identities and protect the sanctity of the vote.
Yet, state election officials from both parties are resisting these necessary federal efforts, raising fears that attempts to secure voter-registration data will be mischaracterized as voter suppression. More than a dozen courts have sided with states seeking to keep voter-roll data secret, and a judge recently ruled against the DHS program at the heart of these audits, undermining efforts to root out fraud. Mullin has rightly warned that officials who refuse to cooperate could face fines, penalties, or even imprisonment for obstructing the process of safeguarding elections.
New Hampshire’s Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan defiantly dismissed the Justice Department’s warning, while Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs trivialized the DOJ’s concerns as a “temper tantrum disguised as an official letter.” Idaho’s Republican attorney general also rejected the DOJ’s warnings about possible criminal violations.
The SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) system, used by DHS, is a critical tool for identifying potential non-citizen voters, though it requires states to conduct further investigations to confirm matches. Nevada’s Democratic Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar irresponsibly called the numbers “wildly speculative,” and Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt downplayed the issue, claiming non-citizen voting is “extremely rare.” Officials in Georgia and North Carolina attempted to minimize the threat by saying flagged names are only potential matches, not confirmed non-citizens, but the risk to election integrity remains.
In Missouri, election officials are diligently verifying the citizenship status of over 1,000 names flagged by DHS. The administration has not yet released data on how many of these flagged individuals may have actually voted, but the ongoing resistance from state officials only fuels concerns that election security is not being taken seriously enough.