Claims that millions of noncitizens would illegally vote evaporated after Trump’s win

A day before the election, James O’Keefe, a content creator known for making undercover videos, posted a video on X alleging an employee at an NGO and a local official in Philadelphia were incorrectly advising noncitizens that they could vote.

"This is the smoking gun of attempted election theft," wrote the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as he shared the video with his 3 million followers on X, the social media platform once known as Twitter.

But as Trump’s win became apparent the following evening, claims about potential noncitizen voter fraud — a dominant message among Trump and his supporters this election season — mostly dried up online.

"Simply put, it did not come up in a substantial or organized conversation on Election Day," said Danielle Lee Tomson, the research manager for the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, which has been tracking misleading election narratives.

"I think the folks who drew attention to those kinds of narratives to begin with have other focuses now that Trump has won," Tomson said.

A key pre-election narrative

President-elect Donald Trump and his allies this year have repeated the baseless claim that Democrats were encouraging migrants to enter the country to illegally vote in the election.

The claims were amplified by Elon Musk, X’s billionaire owner and the platform’s most prominent voice, where right-wing influencers shared videos that purported to show evidence of such a plot.

Allegations about voter rolls riddled with ineligible noncitizens propelled a flurry of lawsuits that were seen as placeholders that could be used to challenge election results in case Trump lost.

"I think the fact that you've seen such a wild drop off in discussions about election integrity tells you all that you need to know about the motivations behind those discussions prior to the election," said Danielle Lang, a voting rights attorney with Campaign Legal Center.

Lang said rather, the unfounded claims were motivated by “partisan, self-serving” interests to “potentially undermine their election if they didn't like the results.”

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote, and studies and audits have shown it has happened only very rarely in past elections.

Yet amid the rhetoric, a number of states launched new initiatives to remove possible noncitizens from voter rolls right before the election and wound up ensnaring U.S. citizens as well.

Front and center in North Carolina

Fears about noncitizens voting may have helped drive voters to the polls this year. Eight states had ballot measures reaffirming that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote.

All the initiatives passed, including in North Carolina, where volunteers with the North Carolina Election Integrity Team have been scouring voter rolls for possible ineligible voters and noncitizens.

The effort is led by Jim Womack, who is also the Republican Party chair for Lee County.

Last month, CBS obtained a video where Womack included "Hispanic-sounding last names" as a factor to consider when deciding whether someone on the voter rolls is suspicious.

"If you've got folks that you, that were registered, and they're missing information… and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election, and they've got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter," Womack said, according to CBS.

Womack confirmed to NPR that he had made those comments, but said the same would be true for other kinds of last names. "We were not targeting Hispanic voters and we never have," he said.

When NPR spoke to Womack on Thursday, he said he did not yet know how many early voting challenges his organization’s volunteers would be filing with county officials in the coming days.

"It's still very early after the election," he said when asked his view about the role noncitizens played in this year’s contest. "I don't think noncitizens had a dramatic impact on the election."

Womack said he was confident there were some cases around the country, including instances where noncitizens mistakenly cast ballots without realizing they were ineligible, but said he did not think it was enough to “contort” the results.

There is one pending case of alleged noncitizen voting that has been publicized so far this election cycle. Law enforcement in Michigan have filed criminal charges against a Chinese college student in Michigan for allegedly casting an early ballot without being a U.S. citizen.

This year, Womack’s group made Spanish-language signs, warning that noncitizen voting is a crime punishable by deportation.

"We put them up at the polling sites around the state to help prevent noncitizens from committing a crime," Womack said, describing the efforts as a service for noncitizens who may have been registered accidentally.

But the signs, as well as reports about Womack’s group’s voter challenges, have confused and intimidated some North Carolina immigrants who just became citizens, said Iliana Santillan of the Latino advocacy organization, El Pueblo.

"We had a few people ask about whether or not they can vote because they're naturalized citizens," Santillan told NPR.

A lasting legacy

Danielle Lang, the attorney with Campaign Legal Center, spent Election Day answering voters’ calls for a national election protection hotline.

"There were reports of folks being kind of asked about their citizenship basically on how they looked," Lang said. "And that is the type of thing that is the natural result of the rhetoric leading up to this election."

And that rhetoric is likely to continue.

Cleta Mitchell, an attorney and former Trump advisor who was key to promoting the noncitizen voting narrative this year, wrote on X on Election Day, "We still have a lot of work to do to permanently protect against noncitizen voting."

Republican lawmakers have indicated it is a legislative priority to pass new voter registration policies that will require proof of citizenship.

But voting rights advocates worry that will result in more barriers for eligible voters.

Surveys have shown that 1 in 10 adult American citizens do not have easy access to proof of citizenship documents like a birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate.

Copyright 2024, NPR

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