States have multiple checks in place to ensure that only eligible citizens can vote. But in recent years, politicians and others have attempted to gin up fear that this is not the case through making false claims of noncitizen voting.

Election deniers are laying the groundwork to contest the results if their preferred candidates don’t win. And their false claims have been used as a pretext to purge substantial numbers of voters from the rolls and enact restrictive voting laws that risk disenfranchising voters of color, low-income voters, and others.

Debunking False Claims of Noncitizen Voting

This resource identifies the mouthpieces for these conspiracy theories and debunks the inaccurate claims.

Who: State officials in Alabama, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia

What: Officials in each of these states have recently claimed to have purged thousands of potential noncitizens from their electoral rolls, stoking fears about noncitizen voting. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose directed county election boards to strike 136 noncitizen registrations from the state’s voter rolls in May 2024 and another 499 in August. In June, Tennessee election officials sent letters to more than 14,000 registered voters identified through DMV records threatening criminal prosecution for voting as noncitizens. In August, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin claimed to have cut 6,300 voters between 2022 and 2024, and Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen directed all county election boards to purge 3,000-plus voters who had been issued noncitizen identification at some point in the past. That same month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the removal of 6,500 noncitizens from the voter rolls over the past three years.

Result: Advocates have been quick to point out that these announcements are short on details and misleading. And while officials have not disclosed the specific procedures they use to identify potential noncitizen voters, similar efforts in the past were rife with error.

That seems to be the case this time around as well. In Tennessee, thousands of the voters sent letters have already provided proof that they are citizens, and the state abandoned plans to purge the recipients. There is already reporting about eligible citizens targeted by the purges and notices in Alabama, Ohio, and Texas. None of this comes as a surprise.

Read the full article about false claims of noncitizen voting by Allison Anderman at Brennan Center for Justice.