Study Shows Noncitizens Have Voted in Recent Virginia Elections

Voters cast their ballots at a polling location at the Bennett Park Apartments Art Atrium on March, 5 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

(The Center Square) — In an August executive order, Gov. Glenn Youngkin stated that Virginia’s Department of Elections had removed over 6,300 noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls in over 2.5 years.

A recent independent audit of voter data seems to align with those numbers.

That’s not to say that 6,300 votes were cast by noncitizens in recent elections, however. In the U.S., about 70% of voting-eligible adults register to vote, according to a KFF study. Less actually cast a vote in any given election – about 52% on average, according to the same study.

In this sampling, numbers were much lower for noncitizens. Virginia-based Electoral Process Education Corporation analyzed voter registration lists from May 2023 through June 2024 and found that, during that time, the department removed 1,973 noncitizen registrants from voter rolls. Of those, 399 – or about 20% – voted in elections since February 2019. Of those who did vote, some voted in multiple elections, as the total number of ballots associated with those registrants since 2019 was 938.

EPEC’s study showed which Virginia localities saw the most noncitizens registered to vote, though it should be noted that EPEC was only able to assess part of the data the governor referenced; if it had access to all 6,300 noncitizen registrants, it likely would have identified more voting records and ballots.

Just five of Virginia’s 90 counties and independent cities surpassed 100 noncitizen registrants – the cities of Richmond and Chesterfield, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties. Alexandria and Virginia Beach both sat just under 100 at 96. Of those, Fairfax County, the commonwealth's largest county, had the most noncitizens registered at 355, but Alexandria had the greatest per capita, with 96 registrants and a population of nearly 157,600. Alexandria had nearly 100,700 active, registered voters in 2023, according to city records.

Only 19 of the 96 the study identified as registered in Alexandria actually voted in the city. Still, some voted more than once, as the number of ballots associated with the registrants since February 2019 was 34.

While EPEC notes that noncitizen voters casting 938 ballots since 2019 is “still very infrequent,” its Executive Director, Jonathan Lareau, asserts that it’s more of a problem than many other media sources claim.

“This evidence, which is derived from only official state records, directly contradicts multiple news media reports and attestations that non-citizen voting is a ‘Myth’... and that non-citizen voting happens ‘almost never,'” Lareau wrote. “It is a legitimate concern … and these discoveries are only the registrations that have been found and removed from the voter roles by ELECT and that we can observe in the data. We do not know how many exist that we do not know about.”

For context, some of Virginia’s closest recent political races that were recounted before they were finalized differed by 78 and 374 votes. Kimberly Taylor and Kimberly Pope Adams ran against each other for delegate in November 2023, with Taylor ultimately beating Adams 14,286 to 14,208, less than 1%. More recently, in the primary for the 5th congressional district, John McGuire defeated Rep. Bob Good by 0.6%, 31,583 votes to Good’s 31,209.

In Virginia, it’s a Class 6 felony to knowingly cast a ballot illegally.

The Arlington-Fairfax-based Gazette Leader reported last week on potential investigations into the incidents of noncitizen voting in Arlington County recorded by EPEC.