Addressing the nation in a primetime speech on election integrity Thursday night, President Donald Trump declared that the Department of Homeland Security had uncovered at least 278,000 non-U.
S. citizens illegally registered to vote in federal elections.
The president framed his remarks around what he described as five major areas of concern in Americas election system, placing particular emphasis on the threat of China compromising U.S. election data. According to Western Journal, he coupled those national security concerns with a stark allegation that a DHS review had found more than a quarter of a million non-citizens on voter rolls for federal contests.
We are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security, Trump said, underscoring the gravity of the findings. According to the DHS review, state voter rolls, and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections, Trump said.
The president argued that the true scope of the problem is being concealed by Democrat-led jurisdictions that refuse transparency. Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that, Trump added.
Trump did not specify how many of the identified non-citizens have actually cast ballots, leaving that critical detail unresolved. What is clear under federal law, however, is that non-citizens are barred from voting in federal elections, regardless of what some localities may permit.
A handful of local governments in three states and the District of Columbia allow non-citizens to participate in local races, a policy long criticized by conservatives as eroding the meaning of citizenship. In response, many Republican-led states have moved aggressively to prohibit non-citizen voting at every level, closing loopholes that progressives have sought to expand.
Even with those safeguards, Trump said the DHS review exposed a deeply compromised system. He stressed that even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote.
Put together, these disclosures reveal a system so broken and vulnerable that nobody can possibly defend it, Trump said, arguing that the findings validate long-standing conservative warnings about lax election safeguards. He portrayed the situation as a direct threat to the legitimacy of self-government and the voice of lawful American voters.
To address the problem, Trump said he had ordered DHS to notify every state about non-citizens on their voter rolls and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from the lists immediately. He also pressed Congress to enact the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which would impose tougher nationwide standards, including mandatory voter ID.
During the address, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said the revelation of roughly a quarter of a million ineligible voters showed it was more important than ever to crush foreign election interference and move the SAVE Act forward. Democrats have repeatedly blocked the measure in the Senate, reflecting the lefts broader resistance to voter ID and other basic security provisions that conservatives view as common sense.
Complicating matters further, anti-Trump Republican lame-duck Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina signaled he would side with Democrats in obstructing the bill. If I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math, Tillis said, effectively threatening to stall conservative election reforms at a moment when the integrity of the vote is under unprecedented scrutiny.
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