Fact check: How many non-citizens have been reported to vote in US elections since 2020?

1. Summary of the results

Based on the available analyses, non-citizen voting in US elections since 2020 has been documented in extremely small numbers. The most comprehensive data comes from recent state-level reviews:

• Michigan conducted a thorough review and found 15-16 credible cases of non-citizen voting in the 2024 general election out of 5.7 million votes cast, representing 0.00028% of total votes ^{[1] [2]}
• Georgia identified 20 suspected non-citizens on voter rolls out of 8.2 million registered voters, or 0.00024% ^[3]
• Iowa found 35 potential non-citizen votes out of nearly 1.7 million votes cast ^[4]
• A Brennan Center for Justice survey documented 30 cases of suspected non-citizens voting out of 23.5 million votes examined, representing 0.0001% ^[3]

The Center for Election Innovation & Research concluded that non-citizen voting "occasionally happens but in minuscule numbers, and not in any coordinated way" ^[1]. The Justice Department has brought four cases related to non-citizen voting since 2020 ^[4].

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

The original question lacks several important contextual elements:

• Legal framework: Most people who arrived at the US border in recent years have no path to citizenship, making illegal voting both difficult and pointless for most non-citizens ^[3]
• Municipal voting rights: A small number of localities legally allow non-citizens to vote in municipal races only, which should not be conflated with federal election violations ^[3]
• Detection mechanisms: The documented cases demonstrate that existing safeguards are working to identify and address non-citizen voting when it occurs ^[2]
• Political motivations: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson emphasized that this issue "should be addressed with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer" and warned against using rare instances to justify laws that "could block tens of thousands of Michigan citizens from voting" ^[2]

Political actors who benefit from amplifying non-citizen voting concerns include those pushing for restrictive voting laws, as these rare cases can be used to justify broader voting restrictions that may disproportionately affect eligible citizens ^{[2] [3]}.

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

While the original question appears neutral, it occurs within a context where misleading claims about non-citizens voting can undermine confidence in elections ^[3]. The question's framing could inadvertently support narratives that:

• Exaggerate the scale of non-citizen voting beyond what evidence supports
• Ignore the effectiveness of current detection and prevention systems
• Conflate rare, isolated incidents with systematic voter fraud

The analyses reveal that flawed studies have fueled false claims about non-citizen voting ^[3], and that the White House has claimed non-citizen voting is a significant problem but provides no evidence to support this claim ^[4]. Experts consistently emphasize that available evidence shows non-citizen voting is "incredibly rare" and occurs in numbers far too small to "sway the outcome of any race" ^{[3] [4]}.

The documented cases, while real, represent a minuscule fraction of total votes cast and demonstrate that existing systems are capable of identifying and addressing these violations when they occur.