Fact Check: Did Trump's files prove 278,000 noncitizens were illegally registered to vote?

WASHINGTON, DC: As debate over election integrity continues in the United States, President Donald Trump claimed that newly released government documents showed 278,000 noncitizens were illegally registered to vote.

The claim spread online, with many users interpreting it as proof of widespread illegal voting. But do the documents actually show that hundreds of thousands of noncitizens cast ballots?

Claim: Trump said DHS identified 278K noncitizens registered to vote

During his primetime remarks, Trump highlighted a newly released Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation. He claimed that the DHS investigation had identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections. He said the findings were based on state voter rolls and public records.

"Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable our elections continue to be, we are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security,” Trump said.

He added, “According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote in federal elections.” 

According to the report, DHS identified more than 250,000 noncitizens who were allegedly registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada using public records.

However, the report acknowledged that these records can be incomplete or contain errors. It also claimed that the agency identified another 28,000 noncitizens on voter rolls across 25 states using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.

Fact Check: The claim is misleading

The claim is misleading. The documents do not prove that those individuals were illegally registered to vote or that they cast illegal ballots in federal elections. The available evidence does not conclusively support the broader allegation of widespread illegal voting.

A review of public records, along with interviews with government officials and election experts, found that the 278,000 figure appears to be significantly overstated. Officials have also struggled to find evidence of widespread voter fraud involving noncitizens that would support the claim.

Government officials and independent election experts have repeatedly found that noncitizens make up an extremely small share of voters.

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar rejected the claim, saying, "These numbers are wildly speculative at best, and the Department of Homeland Security hasn't shared anything that backs it up."

Under federal law, states are responsible for managing elections, not the federal government. States have traditionally not been required to provide their voter rolls to federal authorities, and many resisted when the administration requested access to those records.

The Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, DC, seeking voter roll information, but it has so far lost all 15 legal challenges that have reached decisions.