Trump administration subpoenas records on tens of thousands of voters before Nov. 3

The Trump administration has issued more than 100 subpoenas demanding records on tens of thousands of voters in at least a dozen states. That is according to a Reuters investigation published Wednesday, six days before the Nov. 3 midterm election ¹. The stated goal is to find noncitizens on the voter rolls. Most of the subpoenas went out in the past three months ¹.

A subpoena is a legal order to turn over documents. At least 44 of these were issued under the authority of grand juries, the panels that decide whether to bring criminal charges. That ties them to criminal investigations ¹. The demands reached Democratic cities such as Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. They also reached competitive Republican-leaning states such as Texas, Kansas and Georgia ¹⁴.

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The White House says voting by noncitizens is a significant problem ¹. Spokesperson Lauren Bis said "anyone who illegally votes in our elections will be held accountable," and added this ¹:

Only Americans should be electing America's leaders.

A problem the evidence says is rare

Reuters' own analysis and several studies found that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare ¹. Since Trump returned to office, federal prosecutors have accused at least 147 people of illegal voting under a federal "voting by aliens" law. That is fewer than one for every million voters in 2024 ¹.

From Channel GOPTrump on the Alaska ballot and the DOJ suitDonald Trump · 224 plays · captioned, with the source named

Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney for Arizona in the Republican administration of George W. Bush, called the subpoenas "clearly a distraction" for election officials ¹. He described his own time as a prosecutor this way:

in my time as a federal prosecutor, we prosecuted people who shouldn't have voted, but it was so infrequent as to never even come close to altering the outcome of an election.

James Lamanna, the city clerk and election chief in Lynn, Massachusetts, said, "Up until now, they've found one instance of someone voting in an election that shouldn't have been voting" ¹. A letter sent along with the Massachusetts subpoenas asked officials "not to disclose the existence of this subpoena or the fact of your compliance therewith, to anyone." Reuters reported that this secrecy request was not mandatory ¹.

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Numbers that keep shrinking

The federal government's lists have not held up well. In Nevada, federal officials initially claimed to have identified nearly 16,000 potential noncitizens on the rolls. They later cut that figure to fewer than 200, and Nevada officials concluded the remaining people were all citizens ¹.

In California, the Justice Department said more than 20,000 people were likely noncitizens who got mail ballots. State officials called the list unreliable ¹. Acting U.S. deputy attorney general Trent McCotter admitted the list could include U.S. citizens, saying, "We're not perfect" ¹.

In San Diego County, five federal grand jury subpoenas sought information on 25 voters, according to documents obtained by the nonprofit newsroom inewsource ³. One subpoena, issued in July, asked for a ballot itself. Three September subpoenas sought records going back as far as 2011 ³. The county says it turned over no ballots and no records linking voters to how they voted. As of early October, the local federal prosecutor's office said it had filed no voter fraud cases that year ³.

Washington state: 'the tip of the iceberg'

On Monday, Oct. 26, Charles Neil Floyd, the acting U.S. attorney for Western Washington, asked state election officials to set aside the ballots of more than 400 people his office says are noncitizens registered to vote ². Floyd said the finding was based on a small sample. He also said, "This is only the tip of the iceberg" ². One of the names on the list dated back to 1994 ².

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat ⁵, said federal subpoenas over the past three or four weeks sought information on about 100 people. Some of them are citizens, and some are not on the voter rolls at all ². "I don't know where they're getting these names from," Hobbs said ².

But clearly they don't know what they're doing because they're harassing actual citizens.

This is not the first time the Justice Department has pressured Hobbs. On Tuesday, July 7, he accused it of "accelerating down a slippery slope of threatening personal legal action against election administrators" ⁵. That was after assistant U.S. attorney general Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, warned state officials they could be held criminally liable if noncitizens stayed on the rolls ⁵.

Why the records matter after Election Day

That matters because of what could happen after the votes are counted. Legal experts told Reuters the records could be used to challenge results in close midterm races. The Justice Department could also try to delay or block certification, the formal approval of the winners ¹.

So far the courts have pushed back. Courts have ruled against the Justice Department in every voter-roll case so far, and many of those cases remain under appeal ¹. The department has sued 30 states that refused to hand over voter rolls containing sensitive data such as driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers ¹. On Oct. 21, a federal judge largely halted Homeland Security's door-to-door field operations in nine states ¹.

The pattern is consistent. Big numbers get announced, then shrink once they are checked, and the paperwork piles up just before Americans vote. The Justice Department says only that it "will enforce the law wherever the evidence leads" ¹.

The Record

1. Jul 8, 2026Washington's Democratic secretary of state, Steve Hobbs, criticizes a Justice Department letter threatening election officials with criminal liability over noncitizens on the rolls ⁵.
2. Oct 17, 2026inewsource reports five federal grand jury subpoenas sought San Diego County records on 25 voters, some going back to 2011 ³.
3. Oct 21, 2026A federal judge largely halts Homeland Security's voter field operations in nine states ¹.
4. Oct 26, 2026Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd asks Washington to set aside the ballots of more than 400 people his office says are noncitizens ².
5. Oct 28, 2026Reuters reports more than 100 federal subpoenas for records on tens of thousands of voters in at least a dozen states ¹.

Sources

1. Reuters (via Yahoo News), “Trump expands hunt for noncitizen voters with broad subpoena campaign before midterms” (2026-10-28). yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-expands-hunt-noncitizen-voters
2. The Seattle Times (via Anchorage Daily News), “Trump's DOJ demands Washington state set aside ballots of 400-plus voters it says may be noncitizens” (2026-10-26). adn.com/nation-world/2026/10/26/trumps-doj-demands-washingto
3. inewsource, “DOJ subpoenas reveal scope of San Diego voter record probe” (2026-10-17). inewsource.org/2026/10/17/doj-voter-information-san-diego-im
4. Fox News, “Trump returns to Ohio in final campaign push (live updates)” (2026-10-28). foxnews.com/live-news/midterm-elections-2026-trump-ohio-midt
5. Washington State Standard (via KUOW), “DOJ threatens WA election officials with prosecution if noncitizens vote” (2026-07-08). kuow.org/stories/doj-threatens-wa-election-officials-with-pr

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