State officials tout voter roll cleanups after 2020 election, clash over noncitizen voting

State election officials visited Capitol Hill last week to discuss preparations for the November vote, and a “top this” competition broke out.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said he had removed the names of 600 noncitizens from his state’s rolls over the past year. West Virginia Secretary of State Andrew “Mac” Warner, a Republican, said he had erased the names of 400,000 people who had moved, died or were otherwise ineligible.

Florida’s elections chief, Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a Republican, said his state has pulled 1 million names off its active-voter list since 2022.

Not to be outdone, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, pointed out that she had removed 800,000 names from rolls over the past five years in a state less populous than Florida.

A Democrat bragging about taking names off voter lists would have been almost unthinkable five years ago, but a sea change in thinking since the 2020 elections has brought attention to the issue, said Lauren Bowman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

In the past, secretaries of state focused heavily on ballot access thanks to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. That law, better known as Motor Voter, also included directions to state election officials to clean up their rolls.

After the pandemic-infused 2020 election, when states rushed to adopt mailed ballots, the issue of dirty voter rolls gained attention. If states mail out ballot request forms, or even live ballots in some cases, it’s essential to know they are going to legitimate voters.

“That’s been one of the good things that came out of the 2020 election,” Ms. Bowman said. “There’s a lot more pressure on these secretaries of state to essential list maintenance.”

State officials bragged about name removal at a hearing of the House Administration Committee, where the usual partisan differences emerged over the tension between ballot access and election integrity.

Nowhere was that more apparent than in noncitizen voting, which the Democratic officials said wasn’t worthy of concern.

“Noncitizen voting does not happen in any systemic way in New Mexico or in the nation more broadly,” said Maggie Toulouse Oliver, secretary of state in New Mexico. “However, voters believe noncitizen voting does occur, and this impacts their overall confidence in elections.”

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes called noncitizen voting “vanishingly rare” and a “fake problem.” He complained that voters in his state adopted a proposal in 2004 that required proof of citizenship to register to vote on a state form. Federal law requires only a signature attestation for registering on a federal form.

Mr. Fontes said that when he served as county recorder in Maricopa County, officials determined that the citizenship proof requirement blocked 47,000 American citizens from registering to vote.

“Voter suppression is unfortunately alive and well,” he said.

Republican-led states say they have found noncitizens on their rolls.

Virginia said it culled its lists of 6,300 likely noncitizens, Alabama said it invalidated 3,200 names, and Texas deleted 6,500 names of people, 1,830 of whom cast ballots in the past.

Ohio’s Mr. LaRose told the committee that he found 600 noncitizens on his state’s rolls over the past year, including 135 who had cast ballots in elections.

“This idea that it’s already illegal — it’s illegal to hijack airplanes, but we don’t get rid of the [Transportation Security Administration],” he said.

Mr. LaRose said finding the names wasn’t easy. State officials had to strike a deal with the Department of Homeland Security and pay $1 per name to run a list of names against one of the federal agency’s databases.

He said states could head off the problem by checking citizenship on the front end.

That would require a change in federal law, which currently requires states to pursue noncitizens after the fact.

The Republican National Committee last month challenged Minnesota, where a noncitizen was reportedly mailed a primary ballot this year thanks to the state’s automatic voter registration system.

Minnesota reviewed more than 103,000 names and said it suspended 1%, or about 1,000, from its active voter rolls because of questions about their validity.

Republicans said dirty voter rolls are a black eye on the administration of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

“Without the efforts of the RNC and MNGOP, Walz would have quietly allowed noncitizens to remain on the voter rolls and cast ballots this election,” said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley.

Minnesota’s public safety commissioner said some also were pulled because of problems with addresses or names.

“Minnesota has a proud tradition of broad voter participation and unquestionably fair and secure elections,” Commissioner Bob Jacobson said in a letter to the RNC.

Michigan’s Ms. Benson downplayed noncitizen voting at last week’s hearing, even as she bragged about removing names for other reasons, such as those who had died or moved.

“There’s no evidence that non-citizens are voting. If they were, it would be easy to prove since voting records are public and despite numerous organizations spending a lot of money to try to convince people that non-citizens are voting, none of these groups have actually been able to provide any evidence of it,” she said.

Ms. Bowman said Ms. Benson’s words about cleaning her voter rolls rang hollow.

“Since before the 2020 election, we have been trying to get Secretary Benson to remove nearly 26,000 deceased registrants. Many of these registrants have been dead for over two decades. We’ve even provided her with many of their obituaries and pictures of their graves,” Ms. Bowman said.