Activists reject Republicans' noncitizen voting theory: 'it's an attack on voters of color and Latinos'

During the last week, authorities in California, Colorado and Illinois were forced to debunk violent migrant takeovers across their states, as conservative media outlets and personalities like Elon Musk and Republican candidate Donald Trump spread unsubstantiated claims through social media.

The spread of misinformation has also found fertile ground in another field, one that has large implications this electoral season: voter registration. As The New York Times reports, the fear around noncitizen voting has mobilized a network of Republicans, many of whom were energized by former President Donald Trump's claims of a rigged election back in 2020.

These activists have increased pressure on local election officials to implement measures they believe will prevent noncitizen voting, including pushing for voter roll purges, filing lawsuits, organizing on-the-ground monitoring of polling places, and spreading information online.

And, although there is no indication that noncitizens are voting in large numbers, the narrative seems to be making an impact, as Republican elected officials have responded to these concerns. In Texas, for example, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into whether organizations were registering noncitizens to vote, authorizing state police to search the homes of activists involved in registering Latino voters.

Voting rights advocates consulted by The Times raised concerns about this false narrative, drawing parallels to tactics used during the Jim Crow era to suppress Black and Latino voters. "This narrative that noncitizens are voting is really an attack on voters of color and particularly Latino voters and new Americans," said Hannah Fried, the executive director of All Voting is Local, a voting rights group.

Ms. Fried and other voting rights advocates also see another risk: several of the people raising the specter of noncitizens' voting also led the charge to overturn Mr. Trump's defeat in 2020, and their focus on this narrative now threatens to sow more distrust in the election system and could be used to justify election challenges should Mr. Trump lose again.

Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, a group that monitors threats against fair elections, echoes this sentiment:

"Since 2020, we've seen a sustained effort to foment distrust in our election system and election results, and I think this is another effort to do more of that work."

Studies have repeatedly found that a relatively small number of noncitizens make it onto voter rolls, and a far smaller number cast ballots. A recent analysis published by the Cato Institute found that the number of votes cast by noncitizens discovered through state audits in 2016 ranged from three in Nevada, out of over a million votes cast, to 41 in North Carolina, where nearly five million votes were cast. The study by the institute also concluded:

"The more people believe elections are rigged, the more they are likely to turn their discontents in a direction other than electoral politics. Some will go the passive route of resignation, withdrawing from civic involvements, making themselves the perfect subjects for strongman rule. Others will turn to militia activity or outright violence."