State officials are pushing back on the Department of Homeland Security’s claims that it found tens of thousands of noncitizens on their voter rolls, asking the department to explain how it arrived at its conclusion.
Ahead of President Donald Trump’s primetime speech from the White House earlier this month in which he made sweeping claims of voter fraud, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote to officials in Nevada, Pennsylvania, California and New Jersey, saying he believed the four states had more than 250,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls combined. During a news conference the day after Trump’s speech, Mullin threatened officials with potential prison time if they do not “secure their elections.”
Ahead of Mullin’s requested two-week deadline for response, officials in California, Nevada and Pennsylvania sent back letters questioning where DHS got its data. All three states have declined to share private state voter roll data that includes personal identifying information like Social Security numbers.
“The American public deserves transparency in how their private information is being used at the federal level,” Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, said in an interview Thursday. “I don’t believe the federal government is being honest with the American people.”
“They’re gathering private information about citizens, but they’re not explaining how they’re doing it, and it may not be accurate. And to classify somebody as not able to exercise their constitutional fundamental rights is a real harm,” Aguilar added.
In separate letters to Mullin dated Wednesday, Aguilar and Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican, questioned how the federal government arrived at its conclusions without the unredacted voter rolls that the Justice Department has sued each state to obtain.
“How did your department match social security numbers to Nevada registrants and what data sources did you use if not the voter information provided by” the secretary of state, Aguilar wrote in his letter.
“As you know, past analyses of voter lists have relied on faulty methodologies that can lead to inaccurate results and false claims about the citizenship status of eligible voters,” Schmidt wrote. “Please provide a document explaining your methodology, which identifies the data sources you relied on.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new responses from state officials.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, asked Mullin in a July 23 letter to share the information of anyone who gave the federal government private voter data, as it is a crime under state law.
“I have serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims, since my office has not shared our statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official. Indeed, state law prohibits sharing voters’ sensitive information, including social security numbers, with any person, including the federal government,” Weber wrote.
Weber asked for details on the federal government’s analysis, including data sources and whether artificial intelligence was used.
Noncitizen voting is illegal and rare. Sometimes, noncitizens do end up on states’ voter rolls, but, historically, few have attempted to cast a ballot.
Days after Trump’s speech, Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, the fourth state singled out by the Trump administration, announced that officials had uncovered a Motor Vehicle Commission error that led to around 6,600 self-identified noncitizens being registered to vote and that roughly 400 cast ballots between 2023 and 2024. The number of noncitizens that New Jersey found on its voter rolls fell short of the 35,000 that DHS claimed.
The Trump administration later asked New Jersey to hand over details on the registrants, but Sherrill said in a letter that the state would not share that information with the federal government.
“DOJ will get this information through all legal means!” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon responded in a post on X on Tuesday.
Sherrill’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
