Fact Check: Is Trump's claim Census Bureau find 24,000 non-citizen voted in 2020 election true?

WASHINGTON, DC: Amid President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, he recently claimed that the Census Bureau has found 24,000 non-citizen votes in that year’s election. Trump’s allegation was accompanied by graphs and election data, sparking speculation and calls for verification.

Claim: 24,000 non-citizens voted in 2020 election

Trump made the claim in a Truth Social post on Tuesday, August 18, which stated, “The Census Bureau has begun checking the Voter Records from 2020 against their Citizenship Records." 

"On the first 128,000,000 Voters, the Census Bureau proves that over 24,000 Noncitizens voted illegally! The Census Bureau is going to analyze the next 32,000,000 Voters, and this number will explode. I WON THE ELECTION! We must pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

The post was accompanied by graphics and a report titled “Noncitizen Voting in the 2020 Election, A Beginning Analysis." The claim drew conflicting responses from netizens, with many agreeing with Trump, while others called for a fact-check.

Donald Trump's claims are misleading

However, Trump's claim is false, as the Census Bureau did not reveal that more than 24,000 noncitizens voted illegally in 2020; rather, it said that more than 24,000 voter records were matched to government records, indicating that the person might not be a citizen, but matched is not the same as proven.

The bureau compared a commercial voter list with several databases, including immigration records and visa records. When it could not match a person using a Social Security number, it used their name, date of birth, and address.

If a person appeared in immigration records but the bureau could not find records showing that they later became a citizen, they’re classified as a noncitizen voter.

But this does not prove that the person was a noncitizen; rather, it only means that the bureau could not find proof of citizenship in the database it analyzed. Their citizenship records may not have been included in those databases.

David Becker, executive director and founder of Center for Election Innovation & Research, stated, “This alleged analysis is based on Census data and fails the laugh test." 

"The administration does not provide a sufficient explanation of how it arrived at these numbers -- and for good reason."

"Census data cannot be reliably matched to public voter data, as it lacks any unique matching identifiers to compare to those public voter records. Any possible effort to 'match' such data would result in large numbers of false matches.”