Trump's campaign against noncitizen voting demonstrates it's rare and
not enough to swing elections
[October 01, 2026]
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and GARY FIELDS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration's campaign to root out
noncitizen voting is demonstrating what critics of President Donald
Trump's election conspiracy theories have long argued — that it's
incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the
outcome of elections.
The administration has dedicated enormous resources to what election
experts and administrators characterize as a comparatively small issue —
noncitizens who, often due to misunderstanding the law, add their votes
to the tens of millions of ballots cast during national elections.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced federal charges
against 10 people in Minnesota alleged to have voted illegally over the
last three elections, a period in which more than 8 million ballots were
cast in the state.
“We’re focused on providing accountability and restoring trust in our
elections,” Blanche said, lamenting that the media did not take
seriously the charges for voter fraud his office has brought.
He said those added up to 90 for various types of election misconduct,
including 50 against people who are alleged to have voted as
noncitizens.
Even the 90 cases, which conflate voter fraud cases involving citizens
of both political parties with those alleging noncitizen voting, are
nominal in terms of the number of votes cast during presidential
elections. It's nowhere near enough votes to swing any significant
federal or even state election.
The U.S. had nearly 228 million registered voters for the 2024
presidential election, with more than 152 million ballots cast.
“They're incredibly low numbers no matter how you slice it," said Aaron
Blacksberg of the Institute for Responsive Government, who was on a
panel of election officials and experts on Wednesday in Washington,
D.C., just before Blanche's announcement.
Noncitizen voting is part of administration's messaging about
widespread voter fraud
The continuing drumbeat from the administration about voter fraud and
noncitizens casting ballots, even when their own investigations show
it's rare, is one reason Democrats, civil rights groups and many
election officials are bracing for the possibility of Trump intervening
in the November vote.
The election officials who gathered with Blacksberg held a media
roundtable during which they reassured voters that they are prepared for
any possible disruptions this fall.
Democrats and civil rights groups have filed multiple lawsuits to try to
prevent the Trump administration from sending armed agents to the polls,
something the administration insists it will not do. Trump has lamented
that he did not order the military to seize voting machines in 2020,
leading many election officials and Democrats to brace for that
possibility in the fall.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a letter
to a U.S. senator last month that there are no such plans for the
military.
The scarcity of actual fraud or voting by noncitizens was one reason why
election officials, courts and some of Trump’s own officials rejected
his claims that he lost the 2020 election due to massive fraud. Now back
in office, Trump has launched a sweeping probe to try to retroactively
prove his false claims. His administration has directed Homeland
Security and other federal agents to scour voter rolls to identify
noncitizen voters. A whistleblower statement filed earlier this month
with Congress says the effort may violate state laws and gives agents
only 12 minutes to determine whether a flagged person is actually a
citizen.
Distinguishing any noncitizens on voter rolls from the many legal voters
who may have similar names, birth dates or other identifying information
is why many voting rights groups and Democrats have resisted the
administration's aggressive campaign. They worry it would disenfranchise
more legal voters than it would block illegal ones.
Plenty of evidence to show that noncitizen voting is a minuscule
problem
There's a history behind those concerns. In Kansas, a 2011 law requiring
proof of citizenship to vote blocked the registration of more than
31,000 U.S. citizens before a federal judge declared the law
unconstitutional.
Trump pushed Republicans to pass a law reminiscent of the Kansas
measure, but it could not overcome resistance in the Senate from
Democrats and even some Republicans. The president then tried to limit
mail voting through executive action, but that was blocked by the courts
and ultimately stopped from taking effect for the midterms by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
[to top of second column]
|
Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a news conference at the
Department of Justice, Wednesday Sept. 30, 2026, in Washington, as
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, looks on. (AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The administration has routinely issued press releases noting large
numbers of “suspected” noncitizen voters in certain areas, only to
have to later amend the total to something far less.
In July, Trump claimed Nevada had 1,500 noncitizen voters on its
rolls, but after his administration had to identify them to the
state, the number of actual registered noncitizens turned out to be
zero.
More recently, the top election official in Arizona's Maricopa
County, which includes Phoenix, announced that the Trump
administration's noncitizen database flagged 60 possible noncitizen
voters in a county where more than 2 million voters cast ballots in
2024. The actual number of illegal voters, disclosed by county
prosecutors when they filed charges this week, was eight. The
Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to use that
database to find purported illegal voters during November’s
election.
Investigations in previous years resulted in similar findings. In
Ohio, prosecutors secured indictments against nine people for voting
as noncitizens over the span of 10 years. The state has some 8
million registered voters. During the presidential election two
years ago, Georgia’s secretary of state found that just 20 of the
state’s 8.2 million registered voters were not U.S. citizens.
On Wednesday, Blanche acknowledged that such cases were sporadic and
not connected, undercutting the notion — promoted by Trump himself —
that they are tied to some vast conspiracy to throw elections: “I
don’t think we can say there’s a pattern we’ve identified,” Blanche
said. “You know, I think that — that every case is different.”
DOJ's 10 charges in Minnesota amount to tiny fraction of 8.5
million ballots cast
Administration officials continued to toss around large-sounding
numbers during the news conference. Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed his agency “has 1,600 voter fraud
cases that we're investigating and 300,000 more that we're getting
to.”
Daniel Rosen, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, alleged that “the
state itself fosters an environment that seems to encourage
non-citizens to break the law and vote.”
In a statement, the office of Minnesota Secretary of State Steve
Simon, a Democrat, noted that it is a felony for a noncitizen to
cast a ballot.
“These indictments affirm the fact that noncitizen voting is a
vanishingly rare crime,” it said. “If these indictments result in
convictions, that will amount to ten individuals over a period in
which around 8.5 million votes were cast in Minnesota.”
Voters must attest that they are U.S. citizens when they register to
vote. Violating that can be punishable as a felony, leading to jail
time and deportation.
Blanche alluded to the complexity and effort that go into these
probes.
“These cases aren’t easy, right? So if you get a list of suspected
voters who shouldn’t be voting, whether they’re here illegally or
they’re just not eligible to vote because they’re aliens, you can’t
just go and arrest them. There’s a full investigation that” the
federal government has to do.
Election experts say that's why federal law enforcement has
traditionally not mobilized to combat an issue that is almost
nonexistent. Most voter fraud cases are prosecuted locally.
“It does appear that there have been a lot of resources redirected
away from things like violent crime and counterterrorism, which is
where Homeland Security usually focuses its efforts,” said David
Becker, a former Department of Justice attorney who now runs the
Center for Election Innovation & Research.
Becker added that it would not have been “unusual at all in past
administrations to deprioritize” the voting focus because “it’s just
such a small issue.”
___
Riccardi reported from Denver.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
