DHS Chief Mullin Reveals Staggering Number of ‘Non-Citizens’ On Voter Rolls

The number of people on voting rolls in jurisdictions around the country who are not U.S. citizens is mind-boggling.

That’s according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

He said Friday that federal authorities are reviewing more than 300,000 potential noncitizen matches found on state voter rolls nationwide.

Mullin disclosed the latest figure during an appearance on Newsmax, saying the number has grown significantly as federal investigators compare state voter-registration information against immigration and citizenship records.

The secretary cautioned that DHS has not yet determined how many of the flagged individuals actually voted, an important distinction as investigators continue reviewing the records.

“We don’t know if they voted,” Mullin said, explaining that authorities must conduct additional work before determining whether individual cases involved illegal ballots.

Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, although appearing on a voter-registration list does not itself establish that someone registered unlawfully or cast an illegal ballot.

Mullin previously said DHS had approximately 300,000 records under review while investigators were actively pursuing 1,620 suspected cases involving illegal voting by noncitizens.

At the time, Mullin said Homeland Security Investigations had made 151 arrests as investigators expanded their election-related enforcement work across the country.

The latest numbers represent an increase from figures publicized by the Trump administration during the summer as President Donald Trump pressed states to strengthen citizenship verification.

In July, DHS said preliminary reviews indicated more than 250,000 potential noncitizens could be registered across California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

The department listed as many as 190,832 potential matches in California, 35,152 in New Jersey, 15,903 in Nevada and 14,576 in Pennsylvania.

Another 28,000 potential noncitizen matches were identified after 25 cooperating states checked approximately 68 million registration records through the federal SAVE verification system.

Those figures have generated disputes between the Trump administration, state election officials and voting experts over the accuracy of the underlying comparisons.

DHS characterized the July figures as preliminary and said there “may be as many as” the reported number of noncitizens on the four states’ rolls.

Critics have warned that database comparisons can generate false positives by flagging naturalized citizens, people with similar names or individuals whose immigration information is outdated.

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, called the federal estimates “wildly speculative” and said DHS had not initially provided sufficient information supporting its conclusions.

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, a Republican, similarly said evidence has consistently shown that noncitizen voting is extremely rare while promising to evaluate information supplied by federal authorities.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber also questioned the methodology behind the administration’s estimates while saying California would review legitimate information provided by federal officials.

The administration has nevertheless continued expanding its investigation, with Mullin saying states are supplying voter-registration lists that DHS can compare against federal immigration information.

“We’re scrubbing them,” Mullin said during a September Fox News appearance describing how investigators were examining state records against information involving citizens, permanent residents and people illegally present in the country.

The federal effort has already produced criminal cases involving individual noncitizens accused of registering or voting illegally.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced in September that 10 foreign nationals had been indicted in Minnesota on charges involving illegal voting or falsely claiming American citizenship while registering.

Blanche said the Justice Department had charged more than 90 people with voter-related fraud offenses during Trump’s second term and that hundreds of additional investigations were underway.

Mullin said at that announcement that Homeland Security Investigations had made 100 administrative arrests and 53 criminal arrests while securing 37 indictments and 10 convictions connected to illegal voting investigations.

Those confirmed prosecutions remain far smaller than the hundreds of thousands of potential records currently undergoing review.

Historical experience also demonstrates why preliminary voter-roll matches require individual verification before they can reliably be classified as noncitizens.

Florida initially flagged roughly 180,000 potential noncitizens during a 2012 voter-roll review, but additional examination eventually reduced that figure to fewer than 100 names.

Texas officials have likewise reported instances in which voters identified by federal databases as potential noncitizens later produced citizenship documentation.