Homeland Security Secretary cites 250,000 alleged non-citizen voter registrations in four states

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters that a federal analysis identified as many as 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada. The administration has not released the data or explained how the number was derived. Mullin also said an additional 28,000 non-citizens were found in 23 other states that have shared voter data with the federal government.

Election-integrity experts warned that the estimate relies on commercial databases that can generate false positives. David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the data likely includes many eligible voters and that removing them could violate the law.

State officials in the four targeted states pushed back. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said the state's rolls are regularly updated and that non-citizen voting is “extremely rare.” Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar called the numbers “wildly speculative” and noted the department had not provided supporting evidence. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the state would review the methodology but expressed doubt about its reliability.

Federal law bars non-citizens from voting in federal elections, and only a few local jurisdictions allow non-citizen participation in municipal contests. Past audits in other states have found only a handful of non-citizens on voter rolls, and confirmed cases of non-citizen voting remain exceedingly rare.

The claims appear amid the Trump administration’s broader effort to tighten voting requirements, including executive orders and lawsuits seeking voter-registration data from states. Courts have blocked several of those measures, finding the administration exceeded its authority.