‘No evidence’ noncitizens are voting
Schmidt also pushed back against a federal claim that 14,576 potential noncitizens may be registered to vote in Pennsylvania, saying the Department of Homeland Security has not provided the state with evidence supporting the figure.
In July, U.S. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent letters to Schmidt and three other secretaries of state claiming that tens of thousands of noncitizens were illegally on their voter rolls. Schmidt requested evidence but said that DHS has not yet responded.
“The Department of Homeland Security has not provided us with any written or detailed description of the methodology they used to support its claims,” Schmidt said. “To date, all we have are unsupported accusations in a letter.”
DHS officials have since acknowledged they did not have high confidence that all of the people identified were noncitizens improperly registered to vote.
Schmidt said noncitizen voting is “extremely rare,” but emphasized that his office investigates credible evidence of illegal registration or voting and refers suspected criminal activity to law enforcement when appropriate.
“This is an issue that I’ve worked on for more than a decade now, since my time as a county election official,” Schmidt said. “It is something that my office takes seriously when there is credible evidence that an ineligible individual is registered to vote.”
He also rejected attempts to identify supposedly ineligible voters by comparing voter registration records with lists of people disqualified from jury service.
Conservative activists, including Scott Presler’s Early Vote Action, have requested nonjuror records from Pennsylvania counties, arguing that they can use the information to locate noncitizens on the voter rolls.
Schmidt said the comparison is unreliable because nonjuror lists contain only names and reasons for disqualification, without addresses, Social Security numbers or other information needed to establish that two records belong to the same person.
The lists also represent a moment in time, he said. Someone disqualified from jury service because of citizenship status could subsequently become a naturalized citizen without the older nonjuror record being updated.
“Analyses of voter lists that have relied on faulty methodologies such as this lead to inaccurate results and false claims about the citizenship status of eligible voters or, even worse, eligible voters being prevented from voting,” he said. “The Pennsylvania Department of State and our county partners use methods, tools and data that are reliable to make sure our voter rolls are maintained in accordance with all applicable laws.”
Schmidt said election misinformation remains one of his chief concerns ahead of November. He urged voters to rely on their county election offices and the Department of State’s official website for information.
He also said counties are still recruiting some of the roughly 45,000 poll workers needed to operate more than 9,000 polling places across Pennsylvania. County election offices provide training and pay poll workers for their service.