The Trump administration is reviewing voter rolls from at least 47 states for potential noncitizen registrations ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The White House has pushed federal agencies to accelerate the effort as election day approaches.
The Department of Homeland Security has assigned hundreds of officers from across the federal security and immigration system to examine the records under an effort called the “Unlawful Voter Initiative.”
A Sept. 1 internal DHS email showed that White House officials were closely involved in efforts to speed up the review. The email indicated that a DHS official was prepared to raise delays with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles if agencies could not make sufficient progress.
Federal investigators are comparing voter information with records held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the State Department and the Social Security Administration.
Some voter rolls provided to DHS do not include information such as driver’s license or Social Security numbers. The department has used Accurint, a commercial data service owned by LexisNexis, to supplement information missing from publicly available records.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Saturday that the department had 1,620 cases under investigation and that the number was continuing to grow.
The administration has also increased prosecutions involving alleged noncitizen voting. A Reuters review found that 129 people had been charged under the federal “Voting by Aliens” statute between its enactment in 1996 and July 2026. At least 20 additional cases have been brought during Trump’s second term, according to the review.
The White House has argued that the effort is necessary to identify and prosecute unlawful voting. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said recent arrests show that cases involving noncitizens registering and voting do occur.
A separate Reuters analysis found that states may have added more than 30,000 noncitizens to voter rolls since 2000 because of software problems and clerical errors. The analysis did not establish how many of those individuals ultimately cast ballots. The figure also represents a small fraction of roughly 170 million registered voters nationwide.
The review has also raised concerns about inaccurate matches. Officials familiar with the effort said some referrals included U.S. citizens who had names similar to immigrants, while other citizens born outside the United States were also mistakenly flagged.
Nevada provides one example of the gap between preliminary findings and verified cases. DHS said in July that nearly 16,000 potential noncitizens had been identified on the state’s voter rolls. After Nevada officials requested supporting information, DHS said the initial figure was preliminary and that 185 cases had been verified at that point, according to the Nevada secretary of state’s office.
DHS said its investigations are conducted in accordance with federal law and described the effort as part of protecting the integrity of election results.