US States Mistakenly Added More Than 30,000 Noncitizens to Voter Rolls

Voting booths with an American flag at a polling station. Illustrative image.

WASHINGTON — September 23, 2026

US states may have mistakenly added more than 30,000 self-declared noncitizens to voter registration rolls since 2000 because of software problems and clerical errors, according to official records reviewed in a new analysis. The cases were identified across 12 states governed by both Democrats and Republicans.

The number is small compared with more than 170 million registered voters nationwide, and experts cited in the analysis said the errors were not large enough to affect US elections. It was not possible to determine how many of the people who were mistakenly registered later cast ballots.

The cases point mainly to failures in government registration systems rather than evidence of a coordinated effort to register noncitizens illegally. One of the most recent examples came from New Jersey, where officials said a software problem resulted in about 6,600 people being registered between June 2023 and June 2024 even though they had indicated that they were not US citizens.

The issue has also been reported in California, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia. The nationwide figure is not exact because state records can be revised and may include people whose citizenship status later changed or whose registrations were subsequently removed.

The findings come as the Trump administration and its allies continue to push for stricter requirements for voter registration. President Donald Trump and supporters have made broader claims about noncitizen voting, while the analysis found that the documented registration cases were generally linked to mistakes in state systems.

The White House has supported the SAVE America Act, which would require people to provide proof of US citizenship when registering to vote and would also require photo identification to cast a ballot. Supporters say the proposal would strengthen safeguards around voter eligibility, while opponents argue that additional documentation requirements could create barriers for eligible voters.

Election experts cited in the analysis questioned whether proof-of-citizenship requirements would prevent the specific errors identified. David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the people involved in these cases generally followed the procedures they were given and that the failures occurred within the registration process.

The US motor-voter system allows people to register to vote while applying for driver's licenses, state identification cards and certain government services. The system was established under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which was enacted with bipartisan support under President Bill Clinton.

All 50 states allow legal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, while 19 states and Washington, DC, also allow undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses. This creates situations in which motor-vehicle agencies must distinguish between people who are legally able to obtain identification and those who are eligible to vote.

California experienced a widely reported registration error in 2018 after a processing problem at its Department of Motor Vehicles. State officials said at the time that as many as 1,500 noncitizens had been mistakenly registered.

Oregon has also recorded cases involving immigrants who presented foreign passports or birth certificates but were registered because of administrative errors. Officials there also mistakenly registered some American Samoans who presented US passports, although US nationals from American Samoa are not US citizens and therefore are not eligible to vote in federal elections.

Iowa illustrates how initial estimates can change substantially after officials review records. Before the 2024 election, the state reported that more than 2,000 people had registered or voted after identifying themselves as noncitizens to the Iowa Department of Transportation. Six months later, that figure had fallen to 277. State officials said 35 noncitizens had cast ballots that were counted in the 2024 general election, compared with more than 1.6 million voters overall in the state.

Virginia has reported hundreds of people each year who identified themselves as foreign nationals and appeared on voter rolls. The state reported more than 4,500 such cases in 2025, although officials said the figures also included people who later became citizens and others who had already been removed from the rolls.

Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and the Justice Department has prosecuted cases involving people who falsely claimed citizenship. However, the analysis found no evidence in those cases of a coordinated effort to influence an election.

The findings highlight a distinction between mistaken registration and illegal voting. Being incorrectly placed on a voter roll does not establish that a person cast a ballot, and the available records do not provide a complete nationwide count of ballots cast by people who were mistakenly registered.