Six days before the midterm elections, the Trump administration has issued more than 100 subpoenas demanding records on tens of thousands of voters in at least 13 states — a broad federal campaign to find noncitizens on the voter rolls and prosecute any who have cast ballots, documented through public-records requests and interviews with officials. Most went to state and local election officials in the past three months, some date to the start of the year, and many had never been reported before — wider than the public knew.
At least 49 of the subpoenas were issued under the authority of federal grand juries — tying them to criminal investigations and making them generally harder to challenge in court than agency-issued subpoenas. The subpoenas were issued by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and the administration says it is enforcing that law. The Justice Department declined to confirm or deny using subpoenas in these investigations, but said it “will enforce the law wherever the evidence leads”; Homeland Security did not respond to questions.
The White House says noncitizen voting is a significant problem warranting the effort — including hundreds of federal law enforcement agents deployed — and vows to keep it a top priority. “The Trump administration is sending a clear message that anyone who illegally votes in our elections will be held accountable,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said. “Only Americans should be electing America’s leaders.”
The stake for ordinary voters is direct. Every ballot cast by a person who is not eligible dilutes the vote of a citizen who is — in a close race, it cancels a lawful vote outright. Control of the House could turn on a handful of tight contests, including seats in California, where counting runs for weeks after Election Day. The Heritage Foundation argues that weak verification procedures create opportunities for illegal voting, and that fraud could decide a close election. That is why, the administration says, the records must be checked before the votes are counted, not after.
The demands varied widely — from records on individual voters to entire local rolls holding tens of thousands of names. In Massachusetts, a Trump-backed United States attorney sent grand jury subpoenas to at least eight cities and towns; at least three demanded a complete list of registered voters — names, addresses, party affiliations, birth dates, voting status and voter identification numbers. A letter accompanying one subpoena urged officials not to disclose the subpoena’s existence, though it said that secrecy request was not mandatory. In Lynn, prosecutors sought records on 25 to 30 people. James Lamanna, the city’s clerk and election chief, said investigators had so far found one instance of a person voting who should not have been: “This doesn’t reach the level of something serious and pervasive that it would jeopardize the integrity of an election.” None of the jurisdictions contacted said they were resisting the subpoenas.
In Minnesota, where the Senate race is unexpectedly competitive, subpoenas sought records on dozens of people in Anoka and Hennepin counties, and at least eight people from the two counties have been charged with voting as noncitizens — cases still ongoing, no convictions. California received at least 17 subpoenas, reaching Los Angeles, San Diego, Marin and Fresno counties — Fresno sits inside the closely watched 22nd Congressional District. Philadelphia officials confirmed at least four subpoenas. Subpoenas also went to Arizona, Washington, New York, Connecticut, Utah and Michigan, and to Republican-leaning Texas, Kansas and Georgia.
The subpoenas are one arm of a much larger campaign. Armed Homeland Security agents have questioned residents about their immigration status and voting; on October 21 a federal judge largely halted the department’s field operations in nine states. The Justice Department has sued 30 states that refused to hand over voter rolls containing sensitive personal information — driver’s licence numbers, partial Social Security numbers; courts have ruled against the department in every voter-roll case decided so far, though many remain under appeal.
California shows how hard the fight has become. This month the Justice Department alleged that more than 20,000 “likely” noncitizens had received mail ballots and demanded their ballots not be counted until citizenship was verified, warning officials who knowingly counted them that they risked becoming “aiders and abettors” to a federal crime. California officials refused and called the list unreliable: a state review of 200 registrations found nearly 40 percent appeared to be United States-born. Trent McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general behind the California claims, acknowledged last week the list could include United States citizens. “We’re not perfect,” he said. On October 19, the Justice Department charged 28 people in California — all legal permanent residents — with voting as noncitizens or making false statements on voting paperwork.
In Washington, federal prosecutors said this week they had identified more than 400 noncitizens who appear to be registered to vote, and the secretary of state’s office reports about 60 federal subpoenas in recent weeks for information on individual voters. That is the same fight this newspaper has followed in the state: Secretary of State Steve Hobbs refused a Justice Department demand to hold back ballots from 405 listed voters, writing that the list includes United States citizens, is not reliable, and that refusing to count ballots without proof would be illegal.
Prosecutors keep bringing cases alongside the subpoenas. Since President Trump returned to office, at least 147 people have been accused of illegally voting under the federal statute against voting by aliens, 102 of them since the start of September. Most cases remain unresolved, and the tally is fewer than one accused person for every million people who voted in 2024. The scale of the problem is itself disputed. In a televised address in July, the President said his administration had identified more than 275,000 noncitizen voters in four Democratic-leaning states; state officials disputed the claim, and in Nevada an initial federal figure of nearly 16,000 potential noncitizens was revised to fewer than 200, whom state officials concluded were all citizens. Multiple studies have found noncitizen voting exceedingly rare, and voting-rights groups say no review has found it on a scale that changed an election outcome.
Critics of the campaign say its real purpose is what comes after Election Day. Paul Charlton, a former United States attorney for Arizona under President George W. Bush, called the subpoenas “clearly a distraction” for election officials. Ben Berwick, a former Justice Department attorney now at the advocacy group Protect Democracy, said the investigations are “setting up” post-election challenges that could sow chaos in narrow defeats. On Wednesday, civil-rights groups sued in federal court in California to end the deployment of the federal investigators, alleging it illegally intimidates naturalized citizens. What is not in dispute is the calendar: the cases are open, and the country votes on Tuesday.
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