30,000 Voters Registered in Error Across 12 US States

Non-citizen voter rolls errors may have added more than 30,000 people to US registration lists since 2000, sharpening a fight over voter eligibility.

Official records cited in the review linked the cases mainly to software failures and clerical mistakes in driver’s license and state ID systems. Election experts cited in the review said the numbers were too small, compared with more than 170 million registered voters nationally, to change election outcomes.

The review did not determine how many of the people registered in error cast ballots. It identified mistakes in a dozen states led by both parties, including California, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

DMV files carry the errors

New Jersey reported the most recent high-profile case, saying a technology problem placed about 6,600 self-declared non-citizens on voter rolls between June 2023 and June 2024. The state said those applicants had answered “no” when asked whether they were citizens while applying for licenses or IDs.

The broader pattern runs through state motor-voter systems created under the National Voter Registration Act, the 1993 law that requires voter registration opportunities during applications for licenses and certain public services. Voter registration rose to more than 86% in 2024, from 62% in 1990, according to Census data and the US Election Assistance Commission.

Those systems now operate in a country where the immigrant population has doubled since 1990, according to claims cited by Republican lawmakers. All 50 states allow legal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, while 19 states and the District of Columbia also issue licenses to undocumented immigrants.

SAVE Act meets process limits

President Donald Trump and allies have said, without evidence cited in the review, that non-citizen voting is widespread and organized by Democrats before the November 3 midterm elections. The White House is pressing Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of US citizenship to register and photo ID to vote.

Supporters frame the bill as a safeguard for eligible voters. Critics say it could block eligible citizens who have trouble obtaining passports or birth certificates, including some low-income voters and racial minorities, while forcing a fast change before the midterms.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said proof-of-citizenship rules would not necessarily fix cases caused by agency processing failures. “In each of these instances, the individual did exactly what they were supposed to do. If there was some requirement that you had to show proof of citizenship, these problems would still exist, because the processes themselves failed,” he said.

Don Palmer, a senior legal fellow for election integrity at the Heritage Foundation and a former Trump-appointed chair of the US Election Assistance Commission, attributed many cases to driver’s license agencies. “I think that’s the primary issue,” Palmer said. “Driver's license agencies often make mistakes, and they often are not taking this as seriously as election officials.”

Iowa figures narrow after review

The records also show how initial estimates can change after state checks. Iowa said before the 2024 election that more than 2,000 people had registered or voted after identifying themselves to the state transportation agency as non-citizens; six months later, the state reduced that figure to 277.

Iowa officials said 35 non-citizens cast ballots that were counted in the 2024 general election. More than 1.6 million Iowans voted in that election, placing the confirmed count at a small fraction of statewide turnout.

California disclosed after the 2018 midterms, during Trump’s first term, that as many as 1,500 non-citizens had been registered by the state motor-vehicle agency because of a processing error, according to accounts cited in the review. Oregon records described clerical mistakes involving immigrants who presented foreign passports and birth certificates, as well as American Samoans with US passports who are nationals but not citizens.

Virginia reported hundreds of non-citizens on its rolls in several annual reports, with more than 4,500 listed in 2025 alone by the state Department of Elections. Federal prosecutors have charged 129 people under the federal “voting by aliens” statute created in 1996, and the cited analysis said none of those cases alleged a coordinated effort to influence an election.

The next test is legislative as much as administrative. If Congress advances the SAVE America Act, states would face new documentation requirements; if the bill stalls, pressure will remain on motor-vehicle agencies and election offices to reconcile citizenship data before registration errors become campaign evidence.