Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Friday that a Department of Homeland Security review identified approximately 250,000 alleged non-citizen voter registrations across four Democrat-led states, while warning election officials that failing to act on the information could carry legal consequences.
Speaking during a Friday morning press conference, Mullin said the preliminary review found the registrations in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. He urged officials in each state to immediately examine their voter rolls and cooperate with federal authorities to ensure that only eligible voters remain registered.
Mullin also cautioned that state election officials who refuse to act after receiving information from the federal government could face penalties.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said.
The Homeland Security secretary noted that concerns about election integrity could extend beyond the four states highlighted during the press conference, pointing out that there are 46 other states where election fraud could potentially be occurring. However, he did not indicate whether DHS plans to expand its review beyond the states already identified.
Following the press conference, Mullin published on X copies of letters sent to officials in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, formally placing the states “on notice” and requesting that they review their voter registration records.
In the letters, Mullin said DHS stands ready to assist state officials by providing additional information that could be used to verify voter registration records.
“I hope that you share in the commitment to ensure that only U.S. citizens participate in our federal elections,” Mullin wrote. “Allowing just one non-citizen to vote cancels the vote of one U.S. citizen.”
According to the letters, a preliminary DHS review identified California as having the largest number of alleged improper registrations. Mullin stated that as many as 190,832 individuals in the state may have been illegally registered to vote.
Fox News reported that DHS based its review on information including names, dates of birth, addresses, and Social Security numbers to develop its estimates.
NBC News reported Friday that Mullin is urging states to compare their voter registration rolls against a federal database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security to determine whether non-citizens appear on the lists. According to the report, Mullin also said states that refuse to conduct the review would lose access to federal grants.
NBC News further reported that use of the DHS database for this purpose has been blocked by a federal judge. According to the report, the judge ruled that repurposing the database, which has historically been used to assess immigration benefits, violated rules governing the disclosure of Social Security records.
The report also noted that the database has produced errors when used to review voter registration records, including instances in which newly naturalized U.S. citizens were flagged as non-citizens. Voting rights experts cited by NBC News argued that relying on the database could result in eligible registered voters being improperly removed from voter rolls.
Mullin’s announcement came one day after President Donald Trump’s White House released an FBI file that claimed China’s communist government fabricated “tens of thousands” of driver’s licenses to help Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election.
[READ MORE: Trump Adviser Says No Evidence Foreign Powers Changed U.S. Votes as President Renews Election Security Push]
