Reuters investigation: White House presses review of voter rolls from at least 47 states

Reuters said a September 1 email from a DHS official showed that the department was reviewing voter rolls from at least 47 states and that the White House wanted the work accelerated. Hundreds of personnel from immigration, security and fraud units have reportedly been reassigned in recent months to an effort called the Unlawful Voter Initiative. The email is not a public policy document, and N Globe has not independently obtained it.

Some states provided public versions of their rolls with fields such as driver's-licence or Social Security numbers removed, Reuters reported. DHS therefore used Accurint, a commercial data service owned by LexisNexis, to augment the records before matching them against databases held by ICE, USCIS, the State Department and the Social Security Administration. LexisNexis declined to comment.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said 1,620 cases were under investigation and that the list was growing. Reuters nevertheless cited a U.S. official as saying recent leads often produced false positives, including citizens with names similar to immigrants. Another person familiar with the effort said U.S. citizens born abroad were also swept in. The email reportedly described only some degree of confidence in the identities flagged.

The White House said every case of potential noncitizen voting would be pursued. DHS said its work was lawful and professional and provided an essential guarantee of authentic election results. The U.S. Constitution, however, gives states primary responsibility for election administration, and critics warn that the federal review could wrongly burden lawful voters.

A Reuters review in July found 129 people had been charged under the federal Voting by Aliens statute since its 1996 enactment, with at least 20 more charged by the current administration. Reuters separately estimated that software and clerical errors may have placed more than 30,000 noncitizens on state rolls since 2000, but it was unclear how many voted; that total is small relative to roughly 170 million registered voters nationwide.

Verification status: developing. The core evidence is Reuters' review of an internal email, interviews with current and former officials, and responses from the White House and DHS, not a complete public government file. News value: A. Origin: United States. Primary section: Politics. Related region: World. Source published at 10:05 UTC on September 24, 2026; N Globe report time: 11:20 UTC.