Needles in Haystacks: Noncitizen Voting Violations in Minnesota

Each election cycle, fears that noncitizens are voting surface. Former President Donald Trump and others continue to claim that undocumented immigrants are being allowed into the U.S. to be signed up to vote. Such claims are regularly debunked. This report concludes that fears of noncitizen voting in Minnesota are unjustified. <br><br>One must be a U.S. citizen to vote in Minnesota. Noncitizens with proof of legal immigration status have long had access to driver’s licenses, but this has not led to any significant voter irregularities. <br><br>No one has credibly documented a significant problem with noncitizen voter registration or noncitizen voting in Minnesota. Federal and state criminal penalties, as well as severe immigration consequences, may play a role in deterring such activity. <br><br>I have been unable to find evidence of anything more than sporadic noncitizen voter registration or voting in Minnesota. I have searched federal and state criminal prosecution records, other legal databases, voter registration audits by state agencies, studies by think-tanks, press accounts, national crime databases, state crime reports, immigration records and reports, and jury duty registration processes. This report finds that incidents of voter registration and voting by noncitizens are exceedingly rare. There is no evidence of systematic or widespread voter fraud by noncitizens, whether intentional or accidental. <br><br>For example, we found only three state convictions of green card holders for unlawful voting or unlawful registration between 2015 and 2024, a time when 13,403,668 general-election and primary ballots had been cast. The three people were lawful permanent residents.<br><br>Changes to Minnesota law in 2023, notably Driver’s Licenses For All (DLFA) and Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), do not allow for documented or undocumented noncitizens to vote. The provisions, especially AVR, should make Minnesota’s electoral system even less susceptible to noncitizen voting by requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship before a person is automatically registered to vote.