Noncitizen Voting Cases: DOJ Says Thousands Under Review

The Justice Department’s civil rights chief says federal investigators are reviewing “literally thousands” of possible noncitizen voting cases, a scale far beyond the few dozen charges the department has announced in its weekly roundups this fall. Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who leads the Civil Rights Division, made the claim in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Oct. 18, about two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Most of the people charged so far are green card holders, and the distance between a database flag and a provable case will decide how many more of them, and how many citizens, get pulled in.

Dhillon framed the issue as one of scale. “Noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections, so the question is simply how many of them there are,” she told correspondent Lesley Stahl, adding that “even the Biden administration prosecuted 13 people for noncitizen voting” and that investigations have been under way “for over a year, and it takes time.” Stahl called the numbers tiny. A Justice Department spokesperson told Newsweek on Oct. 19 that the department has charged 112 noncitizens in 20 states with illegal voting and registration offenses in the past seven weeks, and 155 people with voting fraud-related offenses since the administration began. Newsweek is the only outlet to report those totals so far.

How the numbers shrink from flag to charge

The figures now on the public record show a steep funnel, and Dhillon’s “thousands” sits near the wide end of it.

190,832: California voter registrations that a preliminary DHS review flagged in July as potential noncitizens, according to Newsweek, which noted these are registrations, not ballots, and that DHS offered no evidence the people listed had voted.
More than 20,000: California registrants the Justice Department calls “likely noncitizens” in an Oct. 15 lawsuit seeking to stop the counting of their mail ballots, as reported by CBS and Newsweek. California disputes the data.
48: people charged nationwide in three Justice Department roundups announced Sept. 18, Oct. 12 and Oct. 16, of whom 36 are described as lawful permanent residents, a count based on the releases.
52 of more than 2 million: questionable cases that Utah’s audits found among the state’s voters, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said on the same broadcast.

The drop at each step is steep, which is what happens when a citizenship database match is treated as a lead rather than proof: records for naturalized citizens can lag, and a registration is not a vote. Dhillon argued that the small number of past prosecutions does not show the problem is small, Newsweek reported. Henderson, a Republican, refused the department’s request for Utah’s full voter list with Social Security, birth date and driver’s license data, saying “we were concerned about what they would do with that data,” and the department has since said she is under investigation, CBS reported. On Oct. 9 a federal judge in Washington held the department’s voter-roll policy unlawful, as covered here Oct. 14.

Permanent residents carry most of the exposure

Three in four of the 48 defendants in those roundups hold green cards, and several registered decades ago; one North Carolina defendant registered in 1998, according to the Oct. 16 release. The criminal cases are generally limited by a five-year statute of limitations, but the immigration consequences of unlawful voting and false citizenship claims are not, and they require no conviction, as explained here Oct. 18. An investigation reaching thousands of files is likely to matter well beyond the courtroom, because each case creates a record that can resurface when a permanent resident files Form N-400, which asks about past registration and voting, or returns from a trip abroad.

Dhillon also addressed the election itself. Asked whether immigration agents would be sent to polling places, she said, “There is no plan to do that.” She said a noncitizen’s ballot would lead to “the person’s vote being challenged, but not the entire election,” and that “absent some shocking contingency that is unexpected,” counting and certification should proceed as usual.

The test of the “thousands” claim will come after Nov. 3. If charges keep coming at the pace the department described to Newsweek, the share of flagged registrations that become cases will show how reliable the federal data matching is. If they stall, the gap itself becomes the story, and the department’s suit over California’s 20,000 mail ballots is likely to be the first place a court weighs that evidence directly.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

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Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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