Dhs Says It Found Thousands Of Non-citizens On Voter Rolls In Four States

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says his agency found thousands of non-citizens on voter rolls in California and three other states as President Donald Trump prepared to renew his focus on election security with a speech to the nation.

DHS said a preliminary review uncovered tens of thousands of non-citizens on the voter rolls in New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and nearly two hundred thousand in California, according to a draft press release viewed Thursday by POLITICO.

The press release, which did not say whether there was any evidence of actual voting by non-citizens or explain how DHS reached its finding, was circulated inside the agency ahead of Trump’s planned prime time speech in which he had promised to reveal “really big news” on election security.

Democrats and state elections officials are bracing for the possibility that Trump will use the speech to advance his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen amid reports the White House is weighing the declassification of intelligence on vulnerabilities in U.S. voting infrastructure, and Chinese influence peddling in 2020.

The draft press release states that “reviews of the four states’ records” found 190,832 noncitizens registered in California; 35,152 in New Jersey; 15,903 in Nevada; and 14,576 in Pennsylvania. It does not indicate that DHS found evidence that non-citizens cast ballots or explain how it reached a number that appears to be higher than previous reviews have found.

The draft press release makes reference to letters Mullin plans to send to each of the four states. Those letters will ask the top elections officials in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Nevada to “respond within two weeks and confirm their intentions to collaborate with DHS in order to ensure free, fair and accurate elections.”

Spokespeople for the secretaries of state for Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California — the top election officials in each state — did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Spokespeople for the White House and DHS also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is illegal for non-citizens to vote in U.S. elections, and cases in which non-citizens vote are extremely rare. Many suspected non-citizens identified on state voter rolls have turned out to be false-positives.

The preliminary finding from DHS and potential outreach to the states also comes amid a push by Trump to assert greater federal control over elections.

In recent weeks, Trump has berated Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide photo ID and proof of citizenship when they show up to the polls. Republicans in the Senate have signaled the bill, which would also clampdown on mail-in voting, does not have the votes to pass.

Last week, Trump fired the full leadership of the Election Assistance Commission, an independent federal agency that acts as a clearinghouse for best practices on administering elections. The commission also certifies the security of commonly used voting machines and doles out federal election security funds to states.

A declassified review from Trump’s own intelligence community concluded that no foreign adversary altered or even attempted to alter votes in 2020. It also found with high confidence that China “considered but did not deploy” any attempts to influence voter perceptions that year, though it noted some internal disagreement about whether Beijing might have mounted an anti-Trump influence campaign.