Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said earlier this month he had issued an executive order removing 6,303 noncitizens who had “accidentally or maliciously attempted to register” to vote.
He said in an interview that he was “not suggesting there is widespread voter fraud,” but had said in an earlier interview, “Call me crazy, but I think American elections should be decided by American citizens.”
The news quickly spread. Former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson and others praised Youngkin’s order, in tweets and retweets, saying he was keeping “illegals,” “illegal aliens” or “noncitizens” from voting.
Yet the governor’s Aug. 7 order didn’t state whether any of the 6,303 people removed from the voter rolls over the past 18 months were noncitizens who actually voted or if there was an error and they later turned out to be citizens. His office didn’t provide that information when asked by NBC News.
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But months before Election Day, the Republican rhetoric around “noncitizen voting” is propagating the falsehood that masses of undocumented immigrants are voting in U.S. elections, according to voting, civil and immigrant rights groups. Such rhetoric contributes to the erosion of confidence in the electoral process, the groups say.
Local Virginia officials who spoke to NBC News attributed much of the presence of possible noncitizens on the voter rolls to errors made when people fill out paper or online forms or when they respond to a question about citizenship on a touchpad device at the department of motor vehicles.
The same day Youngkin announced the order, Trump praised him in a Truth Social post, saying Virginia and its governor were taking a strong lead in "securing" November's election, protecting every "legal vote and keeping illegal aliens that had been let into our country for voting."
Decision 2024
Massive voting by people illegally in the country is a conspiracy theory long ago debunked, but one that Trump has repeated throughout his campaigns, along with other Republicans.
“What we are seeing is a concerted effort at the state, federal level to stoke fears about noncitizen voting, and obviously that’s tied to xenophobic rhetoric about immigration generally,” said Alice Clapman, senior counsel for voting rights at the progressive Brennan Center for Justice.
In an Aug. 9 retweet of a post by a conservative magazine writer about Virginia’s executive order, Johnson stated that Democrats “are perfectly fine with noncitizens voting in our elections.” To back that up, the Louisiana Republican pointed to how Democrats had voted against the SAVE Act bill that would require all Americans to prove citizenship when registering to vote.
Griffin Neal, a spokesman for Johnson, said the House speaker was “making a point about the 198 House Democrats who voted against this bill, which only ensures American citizens can decide American elections,” not alleging any of the 6,303 had voted illegally.
Voter purges, DMV forms — and possible errors
Youngkin’s press secretary Christian Martinez referred NBC News to the governor’s previous statements saying that the process is “very transparent” and that they “give everyone who was removed from the voter roll 14 days to come back and demonstrate that they are a citizen.”
Nearly two dozen voting, civil and immigrant rights groups have called on Youngkin to release more information about the people removed from Virginia’s voter lists, “to ensure that Virginia’s voters are not wrongfully purged from the voter rolls” ahead of November’s elections. Youngkin’s order also calls on local registrars to warn people about election offenses and their penalties, leading the groups to question how this will be done without intimidating voters.
“I would be curious to know why they are choosing to do this now, before the November election. It sounds like they are pushing this fraud message,” said Jossie Flor Sapunar, spokesperson for CASA, a national advocacy group for immigrants.
On Virginia’s DMV forms, people are asked whether they want to register to vote. Virginia requires people to provide their full Social Security numbers, a DMV credential or proof of identity and legal presence when registering, Youngkin’s order states. Spokesperson Jillian Cowherd said the voter registration process is started at the DMV, but completed at the Virginia Elections Department.
When Virginia residents who aren’t U.S. citizens go to the DMV to apply for a license, they have to provide identifying documents including proof of residence. Youngkin’s order requires lists of people who have said they’re not citizens to be turned over daily to the Elections Department.
Virginia’s DMV checks proof of identity and “legal presence” with the Social Security Administration, Youngkin’s order states. It also uses the Department of Homeland Security system, SAVE, which is designed for checking agency records on immigrants when they’re applying for certain benefits. It’s also used to verify voter rolls.
But user and data errors in the DHS system — such as confusing people who share the same name — have led to people being inaccurately flagged on voter rolls, Clapman said. The use of immigrant records under the SAVE system to verify voter rolls has been criticized by voting rights and immigration advocates because it’s not foolproof.
“If a voter renews their driver’s license or completes another DMV form but neglects to check ‘yes’ to the citizenship question, checks ‘no’ or checks neither box, then this voter is flagged as a possible noncitizen and included in the list,” Tony Castrilli, a spokesman for Fairfax County in northern Virginia, told NBC News in an email.
Fairfax County canceled 985 voters in the county over the last two years, but Castrilli didn’t know how many subsequently confirmed they were citizens and re-registered.
Gretchen Reinemeyer, Arlington County registrar, said the wrong answers sometimes can be a result of frustration with the series of questions people have to answer when they don’t opt out of voter registration.
“What happens is you get pop-ups asking, ‘Are you sure?’ A lot of times people start hitting no, no, no, wondering ‘what do I have to do to stop this?’” she said.
Local officials said they send letters notifying people who have been flagged that they’ve been removed from voter rolls, and give them 14 days to correct errors if they were wrongly removed.
Reese Brogdon, Manassas Park deputy director of elections, said most letters his department sends don’t get a response. But Reinemeyer said she’s experienced citizens being flagged erroneously. None of the local officials had data on how many people return to fix the errors.
“In my experience in working with voters, they know whether or not they are citizens and they know whether or not they should be voting,” Reinemeyer said.
Virginia has same-day registration, so people mistakenly removed from voter rolls who are citizens can show up, affirm they are a citizens and vote, she said.
It is rare for noncitizens to vote because doing so risks prison, fines and even expulsion from the country, the Brennan Center’s Clapman said. It’s been shown over and over, she said, that noncitizen voting is not a problem.
She said Youngkin’s announcement of noncitizen voters “stokes election denial generally, undermining faith in election results. It creates momentum for legislation that would make it harder to vote,” Clapman said.
A history of mistakes
Virginia has a history of mistakes in its voter removals. Last October, election officials under Youngkin removed nearly 3,400 legal Virginia voters from the rolls, after misclassifying probation violators as felons. Felons automatically lose their right to vote in Virginia.
The League of United Latin American Citizens of Richmond settled a 2018 defamation lawsuit it filed against a group run by Trump’s former vote fraud commissioner, J.Christian Adams, for publishing identifying information of people who were identified as noncitizens and removed from the state’s voter rolls. The group had to apologize and publicly state the people they targeted are U.S. citizens.
In their recent letter to Youngkin, voter, civil and immigrant rights groups said,“the integrity of our electoral system depends on the protection of every eligible Virginian’s right and freedom to vote.”
The groups said it’s critical that any election security measures don’t prevent eligible voters from “having their voices heard” or “intimidate or dissuade voters from participating or otherwise sow distrust in our democratic processes.”
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