Allegations of noncitizen voters have multiplied in recent years, although charges of noncitizens voting in Virginia have not panned out.
More than 1,600 voters in Virginia were purged from the rolls in advance of the 2024 election, supposedly because they were noncitizens. That prompted a legal challenge that was resolved earlier this year in a settlement that had Virginia agreeing it would no longer purge voters within 90 days of an election.
Ryan Snow at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law says the allegations of noncitizens voting were not true.
"Those are lies, and they are not just normal lies, they are pernicious lies, because they are designed to undermine confidence in our elections," Snow says. "And they're designed to provide a basis and a justification for discriminatory voting laws that are simply designed to prevent eligible voters from voting."
Now that another election is approaching, Delegate Kirk McPike of Alexandria says he worries that the Trump administration is misdirecting resources at the Department of Homeland Security for what he calls a "phantom risk."
"DHS employees are illegally accessing voter records that are only supposed to be accessed by the person the records are about in order to conduct this sham of an investigation," McPike says.
Voting rights advocates say one of the benefits of early voting is that voters who have been mistakenly removed from the voter rolls have an opportunity to restore their right to vote before voting ends in November.
