{"id":243897,"date":"2026-07-15T12:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/243897\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T12:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:18:09","slug":"trump-administration-warning-over-noncitizen-voters-will-not-immediately-change-pennsylvanias-2026-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/243897\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration warning over noncitizen voters will not immediately change Pennsylvania\u2019s 2026 election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania\u2019s free newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania\u2019s top election official, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, gave no indication the state would be changing any policies or practices in response to a letter from President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of Justice warning Schmidt could face criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Justice Department sent letters to all 50 states<\/a> warning that their chief election officials could be criminally charged if they knowingly allow noncitizens to vote or be registered to vote.<\/p>\n

In a response sent Monday<\/a>, Schmidt told the Justice Department that he takes the prospect of ineligible voters seriously. But he gave no indication the Pennsylvania Department of State would make any changes to the administration of the 2026 election and noted that it is actually local officials who are in charge of maintaining the voter rolls. <\/p>\n

\u201cBe assured that these dedicated local officials, as well as our employees who serve at the Department of State, work tirelessly to ensure that Pennsylvania\u2019s voter rolls are accurately maintained,\u201d Schmidt\u2019s letter said. \u201cFurthermore, be assured that the Department refers instances of suspected voter fraud to our state and federal law enforcement partners, and we encourage our county election officials to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vote smart(er) with Votebeat Pennsylvania’s newsletter.<\/p>\n

Get the latest news on voting and elections in the Keystone State delivered to your inbox for free every other Thursday.<\/p>\n

The letter said that Schmidt\u2019s department already works closely with the Justice Department, highlighting its cooperation in the investigation of an accused noncitizen voter<\/a> who was charged criminally earlier this year. It also referred the Justice Department to the state\u2019s most recent report on voter registration<\/a>, which shows that, in 2025, the state sent more than 400,000 notifications to voters in an effort to update information on the voter rolls and that more than 300,000 registrations were canceled, including 120 for people who were ineligible to vote. <\/p>\n

Schmidt himself also has a personal history with the issue of noncitizen voting. As a city commissioner in Philadelphia in the 2010s, he uncovered hundreds of noncitizens<\/a> who had registered to vote and cast ballots in Philadelphia due to an issue in the state\u2019s motor voter registration system, which was fixed after the discovery. <\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Department of State and Trump administration were already at odds prior to the latest round of letters. Since last year, the Justice Department has been seeking a copy of Pennsylvania\u2019s voter roll<\/a> that contains driver\u2019s license and partial Social Security numbers, which it says it needs to ensure Pennsylvania is complying with federal law.<\/p>\n

The Department of State declined to provide that information, citing privacy concerns, and the Justice Department sued. A federal judge recently<\/a> ruled that the Trump administration didn\u2019t have grounds to seek the information, though it is appealing that ruling. <\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro also recently joined a coalition of states suing the administration over Trump\u2019s March executive order<\/a> on mail voting, which would have required the state to submit lists of voters who requested a mail ballot to the U.S. Postal Service and then only allow the Postal Service to send ballots to those voters. A federal judge recently paused that order<\/a> from going into effect.<\/p>\n

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16473,37,28,30,29,85],"class_list":["post-243897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-capitol","tag-harrisburg","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}