DOJ warns states of criminal penalties over noncitizen voting safeguards

The Justice Department has warned state election officials that they could face criminal penalties if noncitizens vote, escalating a federal push that has already reached at least six states, including Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who leads the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said the division has authority not only to seek injunctions but also to prosecute criminal violations.

The letters gave states five days to explain how they would comply with federal election laws requiring officials to keep records and ensure that only eligible U.S. citizens vote in federal elections. One election official called the warning "threatening." Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said his office already has "numerous safeguards" in place to prevent noncitizens or other ineligible voters from casting ballots.

The threat of criminal action marks a sharper posture from the Civil Rights Division, which has historically played a limited role in state voter list maintenance. The National Conference of State Legislatures says federal involvement in that process has been narrow and that there is no national voter registration database. Since May 2025, the Justice Department has been demanding statewide voter registration lists and related election records from nearly every state and Washington, D.C., and the Brennan Center for Justice says the department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., over access to full unredacted voter files.

The dispute sits inside a broader fight over how far Washington can go in policing state election systems, voter rolls and privacy protections for voter data ahead of the 2026 midterms. It also raises a sharper factual question: how common noncitizen voting actually is. A 2017 Brennan Center study of 42 jurisdictions found that noncitizen voting accounted for 0.0001% of votes in the 2016 election in those areas, a tiny fraction that voting rights experts cite when rejecting claims of widespread noncitizen fraud. Against that record, the Justice Department’s warning signals a more aggressive enforcement strategy, one that places civil-rights and election-law powers at the center of a fight over the administration of American elections.