What official investigations were conducted into noncitizen voting after the 2024 US election?
Executive summary
Multiple official inquiries—state reviews, referrals to state attorneys general, and a federal screening effort using a DHS verification tool—followed the 2024 election; they turned up a small number of apparent cases but no evidence of widespread or coordinated noncitizen voting, and the results have been interpreted differently by partisan actors [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Texas referral and state‑level criminal investigations
Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson flagged 33 “potential noncitizens” who voted in November 2024 and referred those names to the Texas Attorney General, and Attorney General Ken Paxton publicly opened investigations into those 33 cases, framing the step as part of enforcing election integrity [5] [6]. Paxton’s announcement followed Texas gaining access to the federal SAVE database, which officials used to screen voter records, and Paxton tied the inquiry to a broader agenda of rooting out alleged voter fraud even as critics warn such probes can produce false positives and political messaging [5] [6] [7].
2. Michigan’s systematic review and referrals for prosecution
Michigan’s Department of State conducted a statewide review beginning in December 2024 that compared motor vehicle records with the voter file and identified 15 people who “appear to be non‑U.S. citizens” and cast ballots in the 2024 general election; 13 of those cases were referred to the Michigan Attorney General for potential criminal charges, one apparent noncitizen voter had died and one case remained under investigation, and officials emphasized the cases represented a vanishingly small share of more than 5.7 million ballots cast [1].
3. The federal screening effort and the roughly 10,000 referrals to HSI
A federal effort that used a DHS verification tool to check voter registrations across jurisdictions led to the department referring about 10,000 cases to Homeland Security Investigations for further review out of roughly 49.5 million registrations processed, a figure the Justice Department also acknowledged; officials and local election administrators cautioned that the tool can flag citizens in error, meaning the referral count is not equivalent to confirmed illegal votes [2].
4. Other state audits, isolated findings, and clerical causes
Several states and counties ran audits or matched DMV lists to voter rolls and reported small numbers of apparent noncitizen votes; examples reported by advocacy and local outlets include an Oregon clerical error that led to 1,822 people being mistakenly added to rolls and produced 38 apparent noncitizen votes in 2024, and state‑level reviews that consistently described the incidence as extremely rare rather than systemic [3] [4] [1].
5. What officials and independent analysts concluded about scale and coordination
Election officials, nonpartisan analysts and reporting have converged on the conclusion that confirmed instances remain minuscule compared with total ballots cast and that no state has documented a coordinated campaign to register or turn out noncitizen voters in 2024; multiple outlets and experts emphasize the disparity between alarmist rhetoric and the empirical findings from these audits [7] [4] [3].
6. Political context, motivations and limits of the investigations
Republican officials and organizations pushed aggressive screenings and publicized referrals—moves advocates say are aimed at bolstering claims of vulnerable elections and driving policy changes such as proof‑of‑citizenship rules—while advocates and some election administrators warn that verification tools and clerical errors can produce false positives that ensnare lawful voters, a dynamic visible in Texas, Ohio, and elsewhere [8] [9] [7] [10]. Reporting also shows federal referrals do not equal prosecutions: the roughly 10,000 DHS referrals required additional vetting before any charges could be brought, and many flags will prove to be errors or ineligible for prosecution [2].
7. Bottom line on “official investigations” after 2024
Official activity after the 2024 election included state audits and matches (Michigan, Oregon and others), state referrals to attorneys general (Texas, Michigan, Ohio examples) and a large federal screening that produced thousands of referrals to HSI; collectively they produced handfuls or dozens of apparent illegal votes in particular states but no evidence of a widespread or coordinated problem according to the officials and analyses cited [1] [5] [2] [3] [4].