The Department of Homeland Security has sent letters to election officials in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania warning that a preliminary review found more than 256,000 noncitizens may be registered to vote in those states, according to letters obtained by Fox News Digital.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin signed the letters Friday. The department compared publicly available state voter rolls against federal immigration records and flagged potential matches by name, date of birth, address, and Social Security number. Mullin gave each state until July 24 to contact DHS and begin a collaborative verification process.
The largest discrepancy sits in California. DHS flagged 190,832 potential noncitizen registrations in the state. New Jersey showed 35,152 flagged records. Nevada had 15,903. Pennsylvania showed 14,576.
Mullin put the stakes plainly in the letters. “Election security is national security,” he wrote. “Only Americans should be electing American leaders.” He added that allowing a single noncitizen to vote “cancels the vote of one U.S. citizen.”
The review does not prove anyone actually voted. Being listed on a voter roll and casting a ballot in a federal election are separate things, and proven cases of noncitizen voting remain rare. DHS acknowledged the findings are preliminary, and that many noncitizens hold legally issued Social Security numbers, including lawful permanent residents and certain work-authorized visa holders. The letters ask states to work with the department on identity verification before any names are removed.
Still, the numbers from the four cooperating states stand in sharp contrast to the 25 states that ran their own voter rolls through DHS systems voluntarily. Those 25 states collectively identified 28,000 potential noncitizens, plus more than 400,000 dead people still listed as active registrants.
Texas provides a useful benchmark. The state ran its full list through DHS and found 2,296 noncitizens out of 18 million registered voters, roughly 1 in every 10,000 registrations. If that same rate applied to California, the expected number would be around 2,800. DHS found 190,832, nearly 68 times the Texas rate.
California has pushed back on the premise. When The Washington Times requested records of noncitizen voters in 2024, the state secretary of state’s office said it had no data to report on the matter. Local jurisdictions have told a different story. Orange County last year notified the federal government that it removed 17 people from its voter rolls after learning they were not citizens. The county said it discovered the problem after noncitizens complained that they received mail-in ballots under California’s all-mail election system.
