DHS Finds 250,000 Possible Noncitizen Voters, Tells States It Is Not Confident They Are Noncitizens

WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security has warned that nearly 250,000 noncitizens may be registered to vote in four states, supplying the approaching midterms with a six-digit threat before supplying those states with evidence that the people are noncitizens.

California said it had not given DHS its statewide registration list and questioned how the agency produced the match. Nevada said it did not understand the method. Pennsylvania’s Republican secretary of the commonwealth said federal officials acknowledged they lacked high confidence that the 14,576 names cited for his state were improperly registered noncitizens. The promised methodology has not arrived.

New Jersey did identify a real registration failure: about 6,600 noncitizens were mistakenly added through a motor vehicle system in 2023 and 2024 even after answering that they were not citizens. Fewer than 400 voted, according to the governor, and the state is replacing the vendor. DHS had initially suggested the New Jersey number could be as high as 35,000, allowing one documented error to support five errors’ worth of urgency.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is already a felony and can lead to deportation. The administration is nevertheless pressing the Senate to pass documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements, asking the Postal Service to restrict mail ballots to a federal list and promoting a Census Bureau analysis that estimated 24,000 unlawful votes in 2020 without publishing ordinary error-rate details.

The policy case now rests on a useful division of labor. Federal officials announce the number, state officials investigate the names, experts identify the false positives, and voters receive the original number again in time for November.