Trump continues noncitizen voting claims through federal agencies
Maine’s Republican candidate for governor confirmed this week that an audio recording in which he discussed deploying federal agents to polling places was authentic. In the recording, the candidate said he planned to ask Trump’s border czar to deploy U.S. marshals and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling places in the state to ensure that only legal voters cast ballots.
The confirmation comes as President Donald Trump and his allies continue to make claims about voting by noncitizens ahead of the November midterm elections. The claims have been advanced through several federal channels in the same period, according to the Associated Press.
Trump is pushing the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters verified as U.S. citizens. The Census Bureau, separately, promoted a report claiming thousands of noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election, a contest Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The AP characterized that report as “dubious.”
The Department of Homeland Security has asserted without providing evidence that 250,000 noncitizens may be registered to vote in four states.
The federal effort is unfolding in the months before the November midterm elections, when voters will decide control of Congress and governor’s races across multiple states.