DHS acknowledges numbers used to flag noncitizens on voter rolls in four states were inflated, according to communications

The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that the noncitizen numbers it publicized to describe voter roll issues were overstated, NPR reported on Monday, citing communications between DHS and state election officials. The development affects the administration’s stated basis for a broader push to identify noncitizens allegedly registered to vote, including a claim that 250,000 noncitizens were on voter rolls in four states.

According to NPR, DHS had previously told the public and states that it identified roughly 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls in four states. But the agency’s later outreach to states, as described in the report, indicated that the figures were preliminary and that subsequent communications reflected inflated results rather than a final count.

NPR described the issue in connection with a call involving Nevada, where state election officials and DHS discussed the administration’s claims. The report said the communications conveyed that DHS’s earlier tallies should not be treated as a settled total, and that updated or clarifying information transmitted to states pointed to differences between the initial estimate and later framing of the underlying data.

While the report focuses on the accuracy of DHS’s noncitizen roll figures, it also underscores the practical impact of disputed election data for state election administration. Numbers used to characterize the scale of an alleged problem can shape compliance priorities, legal challenges, public messaging, and how states evaluate whether additional review is warranted.

The DHS acknowledgments reported by NPR come as election security disputes remain tightly linked to questions about administrative processes and evidence. State officials generally manage voter registration rolls under a framework that includes verification and correction procedures, and federal agencies’ role is often focused on sharing information, rather than independently rewriting voter lists.

NPR’s reporting, if substantiated in additional documentation, suggests that at least some of DHS’s public claims about noncitizen presence on voter rolls relied on data that the agency later characterized as not final. That distinction matters for how claims are used in litigation and oversight, because preliminary figures can differ materially from what a complete adjudication process yields.

A DHS spokesperson did not resolve all details in NPR’s account, and the report describes the acknowledgment through subsequent DHS-to-state communications rather than a standalone correction notice publicly issued by the department in the same way as the earlier figure. The next steps for states and oversight bodies, according to the reporting theme, would depend on whether DHS provides updated, finalized figures and how those figures align with state records and processes.