How Trump's Noncitizen Voter Lists Could Affect the Midterms — and Texas Handed Over Its Data Voluntarily, Reuters Reports
The lists have not been made public, courts have rejected most of the demands behind them, and reviews have found U.S. citizens on them. Reuters explains how they could still be used to contest a close result on Tuesday — and Texas is one of at least 16 states that complied with the data demands voluntarily.
As Americans head to the polls on Tuesday for the midterm elections, lists the Trump administration has compiled of possible noncitizen voters could be used to contest the validity of the results, Reuters reported in a Nov. 1 explainer read in full by this desk.
The administration has acknowledged sending letters to election officials in five states — California, Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Nevada — as of October 30, saying it identified noncitizens on their voter rolls, according to a Justice Department document seen by Reuters. In an October 13 letter, the Justice Department demanded California not count ballots from about 20,000 registered voters who federal agencies 'reasonably believe are likely noncitizens' without first verifying their citizenship, warning that election workers who processed them could face prosecution; President Donald Trump endorsed the warning on social media. State officials rebuffed requests to set aside ballots of people on the lists, which have not been made public, and the Justice Department is now suing California to block the state from counting any ballots from the list. Noncitizen voting is illegal and can lead to jail time, fines and deportation; the White House says it is a significant problem requiring aggressive enforcement. Available evidence indicates it is exceedingly rare: a Reuters investigation in July found just 129 cases in which noncitizens were federally charged with voting illegally since Congress created a 'voting by aliens' statute in 1996, many stemming from confusion or administrative errors. 'Close elections are not rare, and every illegal ballot cancels out the vote of an American citizen,' Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in a statement; Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed in a Fox News interview on Saturday, without evidence, that his agency had found 300,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls.
The lists were built from state data the administration aggressively sought. At least 16 states, including Texas, have complied voluntarily with demands for unredacted rolls; 30 states and Washington, D.C., have not complied and have been sued, and courts have rejected 27 of those efforts so far, many judges finding the federal government has no role in determining voter eligibility. The Department of Homeland Security obtained at least partial voter-roll data from at least 47 states, according to an internal DHS email reviewed by Reuters, and federal investigators matched it against government databases. Whether the lists move Tuesday's results is a different question from whether they survive in court: three legal experts told Reuters a losing candidate could argue suspected noncitizen votes made a close race impossible to call, even as reviews have found many people on the lists are U.S. citizens. On October 28 a federal judge rejected the Justice Department's bid to block the 20,000 California ballots, saying it would 'wreak havoc' on the November 3 elections and questioning the list's reliability; an appeals court upheld that ruling October 30, citing a 'material risk' of disenfranchising eligible voters. Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the department would 'probably' appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court — and acknowledged the California list could include U.S. citizens.
