Federal agencies deployed hundreds of officers to identify potential noncitizen voters, but officials acknowledge false positives and difficulties matching voter records with government databases
Washington, September 2026 : The White House has directed federal agencies to accelerate reviews of voter rolls obtained from at least 47 US states as part of an unprecedented effort to identify potential noncitizens among registered voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) email reviewed by Reuters.
The initiative, being carried out under DHS's Unlawful Voter Initiative, has involved hundreds of officers from across the US immigration and security apparatus. Officials are examining voter-registration records for possible evidence of illegal voting and attempting to determine whether people identified in the reviews are noncitizens who registered or cast ballots.
A September 1 email circulated among DHS officials provides an insight into the scale of the operation and the White House's involvement. It also indicates that officials have struggled to meet targets established for the initiative.
The email said one DHS official had "offered to raise with the WH COS if we can't get forward progress", referring to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Reuters reported that the communication illustrates the administration's push to accelerate the reviews as the midterm elections approach.
Data matching raises concerns over false positives
One of the most significant aspects of the operation is DHS's use of commercial data to supplement voter information obtained from states.
The agency has used voter rolls that in some cases contain redacted personal information, including records where sensitive details have been removed. According to the internal email, DHS "enriched" those records using information purchased from Accurint, a private data service operated by LexisNexis.
The additional information is then being compared with records maintained by several federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the State Department and the Social Security Administration.
LexisNexis declined to comment on the reported use of its data.
The approach has raised concerns among current and former officials and election experts because data matching can produce inaccurate results. Voter records may contain incomplete information, while names, dates of birth and other identifying details can be shared by different individuals.
According to a US official cited by Reuters, leads sent to agents in recent weeks have frequently produced false positives. These included US citizens whose names resembled those of immigrants. Another person familiar with the operation said US citizens born abroad had also been mistakenly identified.
The September 1 DHS email itself said the agency had only "some degree of confidence" that people flagged through the process were noncitizens who had "registered to vote and/or voted".
Officials warn of consequences for people incorrectly flagged
The potential consequences of being incorrectly identified have become a major concern surrounding the programme.
Kerry Doyle, a former DHS deputy general counsel, told Reuters that being flagged in government systems could expose individuals to additional scrutiny, including during air travel, and could complicate applications for naturalisation.
"When there is a flag in the system, it's very difficult to fix it. It totally upends your life," Doyle said.
The concerns come as federal agencies expand the personnel assigned to the reviews.
At USCIS, hundreds of fraud-detection and national-security officers were reassigned to the voter-roll operation for at least three weeks beginning in August, according to three people familiar with the matter.
One person said officers were given a target of reviewing five names per hour, although that target was rarely achieved.
Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of ICE, has also been instructed to increase resources devoted to determining whether people identified as potential noncitizen voters could face criminal charges.
White House says potential violations will be pursued
The White House said in a statement that cases involving potential noncitizen voting would be pursued.
DHS defended the initiative, saying its investigations were being conducted "diligently and professionally in accordance with the law". The department has described the operation as an "essential guarantee" of election integrity.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday that 1,620 cases were under investigation and that the number was increasing daily.
However, the scale of the investigation has also exposed logistical problems inside the federal agencies involved.
Following a late-August call with the White House, DHS officials held a meeting in which, according to the internal email, the ICE team appeared to be unaware of commitments made by its leadership and was uncertain whether it could carry out the requested work at the volume being sought.
Some voter records supplied to DHS also lacked key information such as a person's year of birth, making it difficult for investigators to match them reliably against federal databases.
Debate over extent of noncitizen voting
The administration's initiative is part of President Donald Trump's broader effort to substantiate his longstanding claims that noncitizen voting is widespread in US elections.
Multiple studies and election audits have found limited evidence of noncitizen voting on a scale capable of affecting election outcomes.
Reuters reported in July that only 129 people had been charged under the federal "Voting by Aliens" statute since it was enacted in 1996. The Trump administration has brought charges against at least 20 additional people under the statute since returning to office.
Another Reuters report this week found that states may have added more than 30,000 noncitizens to voter rolls since 2000 as a result of software glitches and clerical errors. It remains unclear how many of those individuals actually voted.
Election experts cited in the reporting said the number was too small compared with the roughly 170 million registered voters in the United States to affect election outcomes.
The findings have contributed to an ongoing debate over how aggressively federal agencies should investigate voter-registration records and what safeguards should be applied when citizens are incorrectly identified.
States have resisted demands for unredacted voter rolls
The administration's efforts have also faced resistance from state governments.
Since returning to office, the Trump administration has sought unredacted voter rolls from nearly every state. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, at least 16 states have agreed to provide complete voter rolls without redactions, while most states have declined.
It remains unclear precisely how DHS obtained the voter rolls from the 47 states cited in the September 1 email.
In some cases, the department appears to have relied on publicly available versions of voter rolls in which sensitive information, including driver's licence and Social Security numbers, had been removed. DHS then used commercial data to supplement those records.
The use of commercially obtained personal information has added another layer to the debate over privacy, accuracy and the federal government's role in election administration.
Nevada case highlights verification problems
Several states have also questioned the administration's claims about the number of potential noncitizens identified.
Nevada provides one example of the challenges involved.
In July, DHS said it had identified nearly 16,000 potential noncitizens on Nevada's voter rolls. After state officials requested evidence supporting the figure, DHS said the number was preliminary and had verified only 185 cases, according to the Nevada secretary of state's office.
Nevada officials said DHS declined to provide additional information requested by the state to independently verify the initial figure.
The episode illustrates the difference between preliminary data matches and confirmed cases. It also highlights the difficulty of drawing conclusions about voter eligibility without access to complete and reliable identifying information.
Election integrity versus accuracy
The federal voter-roll review comes less than two months before the 2026 US midterm elections, increasing the political and administrative stakes surrounding the initiative.
The White House and DHS have framed the operation as an effort to protect election integrity and identify potential violations of federal voting laws. Critics and some current and former officials, however, have raised concerns that inaccurate data matching could result in US citizens being wrongly flagged and subjected to additional scrutiny.
The central question is therefore not only how many potential noncitizens are identified, but how many cases can ultimately be verified through reliable evidence.
As federal agencies continue reviewing records from dozens of states, the internal DHS documents indicate that the administration is seeking faster results while investigators confront incomplete voter information, false positives, data-matching challenges and differing levels of cooperation from state governments.
With the midterm elections approaching, the outcome of the initiative is likely to remain closely watched by federal and state election officials, lawmakers and voting-rights groups, particularly over how potential cases are verified and what happens to individuals who are incorrectly flagged.
(Disclaimer :The content of this article is sourced from a news agency and has not been edited by the Mavericknews30 team.)
