State officials are pushing back on the Department of Homeland Security’s claims that it found tens of thousands of illegal immigrants on their voter rolls, asking the department to explain how it arrived at its conclusion.
Concerns Over Voter Roll Accuracy
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 illegal immigrants 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.”
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.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new responses from state officials.
Methodology and Data Sources
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.
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.
Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
