What’s Breaking Through About False Claims of Noncitizen Voting

In America’s state-led election system, each state uses rigorous processes to ensure every election is free, fair, and secure. Those processes include safeguards to guarantee only eligible Americans can register to vote and cast a ballot.

Only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in federal and state elections—it’s the law across the entire country. But false claims about noncitizens voting in large numbers have nevertheless proliferated. The lies gained a new champion in 2016, after President Trump lost the popular vote. He escalated those falsehoods to a new level when he used them as one of the pillars in his plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump and his allies continued to spread the same lies in the years since, including after he returned to the White House in 2025.

But claims of widespread voting by noncitizens have never been true—election experts from across the political spectrum have run the numbers and found it happens rarely.

The president and his allies continue to spread this lie to drive up Americans’ distrust in our election system and doubt the security of our elections, so that they can question election results if their preferred candidate does not win. The president is using these claims to justify executive action that would illegally grab election powers and authority from the states and seize state voter rolls that contain sensitive personal information, like partial Social Security numbers.

States United research identified effective messages for two types of audiences:

1. Messages for those already concerned about noncitizen voting. These messages are best used when an audience has recently been exposed to misinformation about noncitizen voting, or for groups with higher levels of existing concern.
2. Messages for those not already concerned about noncitizen voting. These messages are best used when an audience has low levels of existing concerns and has not recently been exposed to related misinformation. Such messages bolster their resistance to misinformation on the issue in the future.

Here are some messages best for people already concerned or exposed to misinformation about noncitizens voting in U.S. elections, according to States United research.

The most effective messages focused on Trump’s ulterior motives for spreading lies about noncitizen voting. Other messages we tested that focused on election administration processes and voter verification were not as effective.

• This is clearly about casting doubt on our free and fair elections.
  • The Trump administration is trying to use hypothetical claims about noncitizen voting to cast doubt on our elections and make it seem like the federal government needs to step in to fix it.
  • It’s an excuse to grab power over elections and over your vote.
  • It may seem like normal oversight for the federal government to investigate and regulate things like noncitizen voting in our states, but not like this.
  • The Trump administration is making unfounded claims to intimidate voters and reduce trust in the elections.
• Any effort to add barriers to voting is an effort to silence you.
  • It will take away your voice.
  • Noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare and not a real threat to the outcome of an election.
  • The real threat is disenfranchising legal voters. The harm of a noncitizen voting is tiny. But the harm of disenfranchising an American citizen is massive.
• The Trump administration is trying to make noncitizen voting a problem when it just isn’t.
  • They’re using it as an excuse to get access to state voter rolls, to run voters through an inaccurate citizenship program and share that data with the Department of Homeland Security, and to challenge individual voter registrations.
  • This is a witch-hunt to find something incredibly rare.
  • And it risks kicking eligible voters—like your neighbors, friends, and family—off the rolls in the process.
• The noncitizen voting lie is just a distraction from a string of unpopular policy decisions that are driving up gas prices and making our everyday lives harder.
  • They need an excuse for losing the trust and votes of the American people—and so they’re going to blame it on something like noncitizen voting.
• The Trump administration has been spreading lies about voter fraud and non-citizens on the voter rolls for years now to cast doubt on elections.
  • Now local-level activists are challenging individual voter registrations to get people kicked off the rolls.

Here are some messages best for people who aren’t already concerned or thinking about the issue of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections, according to States United research.

The most effective messages focused on thorough, detailed direct facts about how noncitizens are not voting in large numbers.

• You may hear false claims about noncitizens voting. Often those stories highlight a rare case and present it as a widespread problem.
  • But our election security systems include multiple safeguards to stop noncitizens from voting.
  • Documented cases of noncitizen voting are extremely rare and never impact the outcome of an election.
• Noncitizens are not voting in droves. That’s a simple fact.
  • The number of people who are not U.S. citizens who try to vote in elections in this country is miniscule.
  • This is not a problem that exists in America.
  • There is no accurate and trustworthy data that backs up claims of widespread noncitizens voting.
• Finding a handful of noncitizens on a voter roll is not the same thing as finding evidence that noncitizens actually voted.
  • Anyone who tries to conflate the two doesn’t understand how elections work.
  • Anyone trying to claim that widespread noncitizen voting is an actual problem is clearly just trying to spread lies about our elections.