President Donald Trump said Thursday that a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) review found roughly 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections, arguing the findings expose major weaknesses in the U.S. election system.
Speaking during a primetime speech to address foreign efforts to influence U.S. elections, Trump said the DHS compared state voter registration lists with public records and identified about 278,000 noncitizens on voter rolls. He claimed the figure is incomplete because several Democrat-led states did not provide their voter registration data.
“Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that. Yet, even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote,” Trump said.
Trump also claimed foreign governments have access to large amounts of U.S. voter data, warned that voting machines and ballot tabulation systems remain vulnerable to hacking and manipulation, and accused countries such as China of attempting to influence American elections.
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“Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible. Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments,” Trump added. “Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking, manipulation and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections.”
Trump said that voter rolls still contain hundreds of thousands of noncitizens and deceased individuals.
“Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of noncitizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls,” Trump continued. “And yet, we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.”
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