Federal crackdown yields 160 noncitizen voting arrests, experts call fraud rare

The Trump administration's government-wide effort to identify and prosecute noncitizens on state voter rolls has produced about 1,600 cases and 160 arrests, Homeland Security Investigations official Matthew Millhollin said at a Tuesday briefing. The figures come six weeks before Election Day.

The totals fall far short of the hundreds of thousands of noncitizen voters previously suggested by President Trump and the Department of Homeland Security. They also represent a tiny fraction of more than 211 million active registered voters nationwide.

“They have tried to manufacture evidence of widespread noncitizen voting, and every time they do, their numbers are incredibly small, even when they're overstated.”

Former Justice Department attorney David Becker said the numbers confirm that states have done an extraordinarily good job keeping noncitizens off voter lists. He added that officials have tried to manufacture evidence of widespread noncitizen voting but produce only small numbers.

At the same briefing, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the Justice Department has charged 70 people since the administration began with unlawful voting and registration offenses. Neither official clarified whether the two datasets overlap.

The briefing also addressed separate charges against a Utah postal worker accused of discarding more than 300 mail ballots during the state's June primary. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on the arrest data.