President Trump said DHS had discovered 278,000 noncitizen voters. Experts say it’s not that fast
China and Russia deny President Trump’s election interference claims
Both China and Russia have denied President Donald Trump’s allegations of meddling in the 2020 election.
Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin announced on July 17 that states that do not comply with the Trump administration’s new election security order and consent to the use of federal databases to identify noncitizen voters will not receive federal election reimbursement.
If the Department of Homeland Security discovers that a noncitizen has voted, uncooperative state officials could face fines and jail time, Mullin added.
“We’re saying we need to make the machines secure and we need to purge the voter restoration list,” Mullin told reporters. “If states choose not to participate, we will let you know. We will work to ensure those states prioritize investigating who voted in their states and holding election officials accountable.”
Marin’s threat came a day after President Donald Trump announced in a prime-time White House address that a “stunning investigation” by the Department of Homeland Security found that 278,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in federal elections. Mullin said DHS used public information to discover noncitizens who were registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Jersey.
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. At the same time, a 2026 Bipartisan Policy Center report says there is no evidence that non-citizen votes were important enough to influence the outcome of the election. States regularly review their voter rolls for accuracy, and sporadic cases of non-referendum votes are investigated and prosecuted.
Election experts have pushed back against the Trump administration, saying its methodology is flawed and relies on commercial data with many discrepancies rather than state voter files.
“Commercial data is conceivably impossible to compare to general voter files because of the common names and the lack of personally identifiable information such as driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department attorney who heads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “In some cases, there may not even be a date of birth.”
“Nearly all of them are actually citizens, and I predict that states will, in fact, end up violating federal law by removing them from their voter lists at the request of the federal government.”
No refund
The impact of the Marine threat may not be as great as some expect. He did not say which federal aid would be withheld. And his agency did not respond to requests for further information.
“This is a laughable threat,” Becker said. “This threat is ineffective for any state because no significant amount of federal funding has been allocated. No state is counting on significant federal funding for elections.”
The federal government provides some grants and other funds for election administration, but that assistance is inconsistent. When funds are available, they are most often provided through the Federal Election Assistance Commission. President Trump fired two of the three commissioners last week, leaving the commission without the quorum needed to make decisions ahead of the midterm elections.
Ben Hovland, a former commissioner who was fired by President Trump, said the commission distributed a total of $55 million in Help America Vote Act grants in fiscal year 2025. The funds were distributed among all 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia. Last year’s grants totaled $15 million, Hovland said.
“We saw the government spending that money on lining reflecting pools,” he said.
Hovland pointed to research from the MIT Election Data Science Lab that showed state and local governments spend as much as $6 billion to administer elections.
In most states, voting costs are primarily borne by counties and local governments, even though state and federal elections are eligible for voting in addition to local elections. Most states and local governments pay for elections through taxes.
Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold said most federal election-related grants go to local law enforcement agencies, not to state or local election administration. It’s not money that the nation depends on, she says. Mr. Griswold added that Mr. Marin’s threats could soon be challenged in court if he tried to withhold the money.
data limit
The DHS finding that 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in federal elections comes from public and commercial sources, largely because many states refuse to share their voter rolls with the federal government.
The Justice Department has requested voter rolls from all 50 states for the past two years. At least 17 Republican-led states have responded. But officials in many other states, led by both Republicans and Democrats, refused, citing privacy laws that prohibit the sharing of personal information and a lack of federal authority over the list.
The Justice Department sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for the unredacted list. All 16 resolved lawsuits were lost. Many people have since been appealed.
save system
Marin said DHS also found 28,000 noncitizens and 400,000 deaths in the rolls of 23 states that were using the Trump administration’s newly modified Systematic Alien Verification System for Eligibility, a clearinghouse that combines citizenship data and information from the Social Security Administration.
In late June, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s use of the new system, saying it was providing intentionally inaccurate data to states that are currently “actively” and “haphazardly” removing so-called noncitizens from their voter rolls.
“The federal government knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of Americans by threatening their sacred right to vote,” U.S. District Judge Sparkle Skunanan wrote in a 75-page ruling. “The court cannot sit by and watch that happen.”
Marin noted that the decision was made by an “activist judge.”
“Any judge or God-fearing person who loves this country would want to make sure our elections are secure,” he said.
In July, a federal judge in Florida ordered Mr. Marin’s office to continue allowing some states to use the system, setting off a dispute that likely will take the fight to an appeals court.
