Republican Sen. Mike Lee said that he believes there are “at least tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands” of noncitizens illegally registered to vote in the U.S., adding that a federal tool used in nearly two dozen states would help identify the number. But the tool has wrongly flagged many as being noncitizens, and there’s no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting.
The data-matching program employed in those states over the last year identified about 10,000 potential noncitizens on voter registration lists, out of about 49 million voter registrations checked, according to reporting by the New York Times, citing federal officials. But upon further investigation, county officials found U.S. citizens were among those identified.
Experts and state audits refute the idea of widespread noncitizen voting.
The SAVE America Act championed by Lee — and touted by President Donald Trump as necessary to stop illegal voting by noncitizens — would require all states to submit their voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security to be run through this tool, called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, program. The bill passed the House and is being debated in the Senate. Lee made his comments about noncitizens being registered to vote in a March 22 interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
