DOJ Charges 16 People With Noncitizen Voting as Trump Allies Press for Election Emergency Powers and 1,000 Federal Monitors Deploy

The Justice Department announced charges against 16 people for voting or registering to vote as non-citizens, including four in Pennsylvania. The cases cover elections going back several years. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s department has made non-citizen voting a priority before the 3 November midterms.

Votebeat, a non-profit news site that covers elections, calculated that confirmed non-citizen votes amount to about 0.00024% of ballots cast in recent elections. Studies by state election officials, including Republicans in Georgia and Ohio, have found similar rates. The Department of Homeland Security has said its checks of voter rolls against immigration data found about 250,000 potential non-citizen registrants. Election officials say many such matches turn out to be naturalised citizens whose records weren’t updated.

Emergency powers

Allies of the President outside the government, among them Cleta Mitchell, Mike Lindell and Steve Bannon, have urged him to declare an emergency over election security. Reports describe proposals ranging from federal control of voting machines to seizing ballots. The White House hasn’t endorsed them. Federal courts have already blocked parts of the President’s March order on elections, including its proof-of-citizenship requirement, as covered in our earlier post. The Constitution gives states and Congress, not the President, the power to set the rules for federal elections.

Monitors and agents

The department plans to send about 1,000 federal monitors to polling places, more than in any recent election. The FBI will run command posts in its field offices on Election Day, as it does each cycle. DHS officials haven’t ruled out immigration agents being present near polling sites. Federal law makes it a crime to station troops or armed federal officers at polls, with exceptions, and to intimidate voters.

Why it matters

The prosecutions are real but small. The risk election officials describe is that a narrative of widespread fraud, backed by federal claims and agents, deters eligible voters, especially naturalised citizens, and lays groundwork to dispute results. The test comes after 3 November, in how the department responds if results go against the President’s party.