States Report Thousands of Noncitizen Registrations: Another Manufactured Panic Over Voter Rolls
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
A New Jersey review found 6,600 ineligible registrations, fueling a 25-year cycle of right-wing alarmism over noncitizen voter rolls, despite only a few hundred alleged illegal votes and no evidence of widespread fraud.
New Jersey officials announced that a software error in the state’s motor vehicle system led to the registration of about 6,600 people who were not eligible to vote. Preliminary data show fewer than 400 of those individuals actually cast ballots in recent elections—a minuscule number that hardly justifies the ongoing hysteria about noncitizen voting.
The discovery follows similar findings in other states over the past 25 years, where audits have uncovered noncitizen registrations and, in rare cases, votes cast by individuals without citizenship. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, echoing conservative talking points, claimed preliminary reviews identified up to 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls in four states, including 35,152 in New Jersey. Such numbers are routinely used to stoke fear and justify restrictive voting laws, despite the lack of evidence for widespread abuse.
"This shouldn’t be a red or blue state issue: ONLY Americans should elect American leaders," Mullin said in a statement, repeating a familiar refrain that ignores the real barriers many Americans face in accessing the ballot box.
Experts note that while federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting, there is no nationwide requirement for states to report such findings, leading to inconsistent auditing practices. Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project—a group with a history of supporting voter suppression—described the situation as a "major vulnerability" and suggested that policies in some states may increase the risk of registration errors.
"When you look at the policies that are pushed in blue states by the left, things like automatic voter registration, giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens, banning voter identification laws, no proof of citizenship to vote on and on, this is the inevitable outcome of all of those policies," Snead said, ignoring the fact that these policies are designed to expand access to the ballot for eligible voters and that actual illegal voting remains extremely rare.
State-level reviews since 2020 have reported noncitizen registrations in Louisiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and others, with varying numbers of alleged illegal votes. In Louisiana, 403 noncitizens were identified, 83 of whom had voted; Iowa found 277 registrations with 35 votes cast; Michigan reported 15 alleged noncitizen ballots; Ohio identified 597 and 117 apparent noncitizen registrations in separate years. These numbers, while often cited by the right, represent a tiny fraction of total votes and do not indicate a systemic problem.
Legal scholars point out that the National Voter Registration Act does not explicitly address noncitizen registration, creating ambiguity about state obligations to audit and report such cases. The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has indicated ongoing investigations and prosecutions where evidence supports legal action, but actual prosecutions remain rare.
"It is illegal for any noncitizen to vote in a federal election," a DOJ spokesperson said, adding that the agency is pressing states to clean their rolls—a process that, if not carefully managed, can disenfranchise eligible voters.
Calls for uniform federal standards and more rigorous state-level verification continue as officials and advocacy groups debate how to address the identified vulnerabilities. However, the real threat remains the use of isolated incidents to justify voter suppression and undermine confidence in the democratic process.