We have updated our previous analysis (see March 2024, July 2024, Sept 2024, Oct 2024, Nov 2024, Dec 2024, March 2025, August 2025, Jan 2026 and June 2026 posts) with the latest information from the VA Department of Elections data.
Abstract:
Using data provided by the VA Department of Elections (“ELECT”), we have identified at least 8,129 unique registrations that were self-identified as “Declared NonCitizen” and removed from the voter rolls since May of 2023.
Of those 8,129 removals of self-declared noncitizens — which Virginia’s constitution prohibits from registering and voting, we see 1,384 registrations with a corresponding record of ballots cast, according to the statewide Voter History List (VHL) record.
That brings the number of ballots cast by declared noncitizens to 4,056, according to official records. Those are the records we know about.
In addition, the Daily Absentee List (DAL) data of Virginia’s 45-day early voting period shows an additional ten (10) noncitizen registrations and ballots — none of which are found in the Voter History List (VHL), the final tally of who voted.
Therefore, we see 4,066 illegal ballots cast by self-identified noncitizens, from 1,394 registrants who were removed from the voting rolls after self-declaring themselves as ineligible noncitizens. That’s according to the official Voter History List (VHL) and early voting data found in the Daily Absentee List (DAL) reports.
Voting as an ineligible individual is a Class 6 felony voting violation in Virginia.
Background on non-removal policy
After our initial post on this topic in March 2024, we submitted all of the relevant information for investigation to then-Attorney General, Jayson Miyares (R).
We did not hear back, nor did we receive any response or update on the matter. We are not aware of any action by the AG’s office on these apparent violations since 2024.
At the time in 2024, the Arlington County Electoral Board undertook its own investigation and voted 3-0 to send the information to the AG’s office as well. Fairfax County’s Electoral Board also issued a new policy on referring noncitizens with voting records to the Commonwealth Attorney. The policy stated:
“The General Registrar shall refer all individuals who were removed from the voter rolls pursuant to Va. Code § 24.2-427(C), after being identified by ELECT as noncitizens, to the Commonwealth’s Attorney and the Attorney General to determine if they have violated Virginia elections law.”
In October 2024, during early voting for the presidential election, the League of Women Voters along with the Biden Department of Justice sued VA, asking for an injunction to place approximately 1,600 removed noncitizen registrations back on the voter rolls. After two lower courts granted the injunction, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the case, and the noncitizen removals proceeded as the litigation played out.
It is EPEC’s opinion that the Commonwealth of VA was correctly applying the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in this matter under the Youngkin administration and AG Miyares, as I detailed in an X.com post on Oct 12.
In 2025, the incoming Trump DOJ dropped the Biden DOJ’s lawsuit against VA; the League of Women Voters continued the litigation.
In April of 2026, Virginia’s Democrat Attorney General Jay Jones issued an advisory opinion to the Department of Elections that effectively adopts the same position of the challengers in the Biden DOJ / LWV lawsuit.
ELECT followed this advisory opinion with guidance to registrars instructing them not to remove any noncitizen voters within the NVRA’s 90-day “quiet period” around any federal election, including primaries.
As of May 6th 2026, ELECT is no longer populating noncitizen data into “hoppers” that are used to notify Commonwealth registrars of tasks that require their action.
Instead, ELECT has instructed registrars to change the categorization of existing flagged items in the hopper from “notify voter” to “needs research.”
Fairfax County’s Board of Elections has also apparently moved off its referral policy regarding noncitizens with voting records (as reported in its February 2026 Electoral Board meeting).
See Jones’ April 16, 2026 letter to VA Commissioner of Elections Steven Koski here.
We believe this interpretation is impacting the number of self-identified noncitizens that are removed and reflected in the Monthly Update Service (MUS). We have already seen an order of magnitude difference in the data since June 1, 2026, which covers the May time-period in the new policy.
Voter-List Maintenance Obligations:
As part of its responsibilities under law, the VA Department of Elections is required to identify and remove invalid or out-of-date registration records from the voter rolls.
One situation for removal is when a registrant has been determined (via self identification) to be a noncitizen. The VA Constitution prohibits noncitizens from voting in VA elections.
“In elections by the people, the qualifications of voters shall be as follows: Each voter shall be a citizen of the United States, shall be eighteen years of age, shall fulfill the residence requirements set forth in this section, and shall be registered to vote pursuant to this article. …” VA Constitution, Article II, Section 1. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/constitution/article2/section1/
Additionally, according to VA Code Section 24.2-1004, the act of knowingly casting a ballot by someone who is not eligible to vote is a Class 6 felony.
EPEC’s Analysis Methodology:
ELECT makes available for purchase by qualifying parties various data sets, including the registered voter list (RVL) and the Voter History List (VHL).
Additionally, ELECT provides a Monthly Update Service (MUS) subscription that contains (almost) all of the Voter List changes and transactions for the previous period.
The MUS datasets carry an “NVRAReasonCode” field that is associated with each transaction that gives the reason for the update or change in the voter record. This is in accordance with disclosure and transparency requirements in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
One of the reason codes for records that are removed is “Declared Non-Citizen.”
EPEC has been purchasing and archiving these official records as part of our nonprofit mission to document and educate the public about elections processes, and drive voter participation.
If you are interested in supporting this work, please head on over to our donation page, or to our give-send-go campaign to make a tax-deductible donation.
EPEC looked at the number of records associated with unique voter identification numbers identified for removal from the voter record due to non-citizenship status, per entries in the monthly updates (MUS).
We correlated those results with our accumulated Voter History List (VHL) information to determine whether noncitizen registrations had corresponding records of ballots cast in previous elections.
We only considered those records that are currently in a non-active state as of the latest MUS transaction log. Some determinations of non-citizenship status in the historical MUS transaction log might have been due to error and subsequently corrected and reinstated to active status.
Important to note: We are not considering those records that had a “Declared Non-Citizen” disqualification, but were subsequently reinstated and reactivated by ELECT.
Other Gaps to Note:
While EPEC has periodically purchased full copies of the Voter History List for our archives, there is a known issue with the way ELECT handles removals from the voter record that can cause sampling issues — depending on the time the VHL file is purchased. The result: Records of some legitimately cast ballots can be missing from the VHL due to this policy.
Namely, when ELECT removes an ineligible voter from the voter list, it also removes all instances of that registration’s voter ID from its voter history information and other data files that it provides to qualified organizations. (In my opinion, that process eliminates important voting information and thus is not a good way to manage the data, but that is the way it is done).
In light of that, EPEC also used its archived versions of the Daily Absentee List (DAL) early voting files to check records of ballots cast that might otherwise be eliminated from the VHL.
Results:
There were 8,129 unique voter records marked for removal with the reason of “Declared Non-Citizen” and not subsequently reinstated in the accumulated MUS record that EPEC began collecting in mid-2023. Of those 8,129 there were 1,384 that also had corresponding records of recent ballots cast at some point in the official Voter History record that we could observe. There were 4,056 associated ballots cast identified since Feb of 2019. Figure 1 below shows the distribution of non-citizen voters in the cumulative MUS file history. The blue trace represent the total identified and CANCELED non-citizen registrations, and the yellow trace represents the number of those records that also had corresponding records (at least 1) in the accumulated voter history data.
Note that the data contained in the MUS updates often covers more than a single month’s period. In other words, the individual MUS files are oversampled. Subsequent MUS files can therefore also have repeated entries from previous versions, as their data may overlap. Our analysis used the first unique entry for a given voter ID marked as “Declared Non-Citizen” in the cumulative MUS record, that had not been subsequently reinstated, in order to build Figure 1. This data oversampling in the MUS may help explain the relative spike in the first (May 2023) bin compared to subsequent months.
As VHL information can be incomplete depending on the time the VHL data was purchased in relation to the time that registrants were removed from voter records, EPEC also checked these non-citizen removals against the archived history of Daily Absentee List (DAL) files that EPEC has accumulated. There were an additional ten non-citizen registrations and ballots as per the Daily Absentee List (DAL) data that were not contained in the Voter History data. The total number of identified non-citizen ballots cast is therefore 4,066 by 1,394 registrants when combining unique VHL and DAL identifications.
These identifications represent only the individuals who declared themselves as non-citizen status through official interactions with ELECT, DMV, or other agencies. Each removed registrant was then contacted by the registrar to confirm their non-citizen status prior to removal, as is the current policy. (Again … we are only considering those records that we’re flagged as “Declared Non-Citizen”, removed and never reinstated.)
The distribution of identified non-citizen voters per VA locality is given below in Table 1. It should be noted that each ballot record has a specific locality associated with it stating where the ballot was cast, whereas unique individuals might move between localities over time. The assignment of unique identified individuals to each locality in table 1 is therefore based on the locality listed in the specific MUS “Declared Non-Citizen” record for that individual, while the assignment of ballot cast to Localities is based on the individual VHL/DAL records. A person could have lived and voted multiple times in one county, then moved to another county and voted again before finally being determined as a non-citizen. The same person would have generated multiple VHL/DAL records for each ballot cast, and associated with potentially different localities. This should be kept in mind when attempting to interpret Table 1.
| LOCALITY_NAME | REMOVED | VOTED_VHL | VOTES_VHL | VOTED_DAL_NOT_IN_VHL |
| ACCOMACK COUNTY | 20 | 1 | 7 | 0 |
| ALBEMARLE COUNTY | 81 | 19 | 73 | 0 |
| ALEXANDRIA CITY | 284 | 33 | 66 | 0 |
| ALLEGHANY COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| AMELIA COUNTY | 5 | 2 | 9 | 0 |
| AMHERST COUNTY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| APPOMATTOX COUNTY | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ARLINGTON COUNTY | 247 | 40 | 84 | 0 |
| AUGUSTA COUNTY | 39 | 9 | 19 | 0 |
| BATH COUNTY | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BEDFORD COUNTY | 21 | 4 | 10 | 0 |
| BLAND COUNTY | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| BOTETOURT COUNTY | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BRISTOL CITY | 3 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| BRUNSWICK COUNTY | 3 | 2 | 6 | 0 |
| BUCHANAN COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BUCKINGHAM COUNTY | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| BUENA VISTA CITY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CAMPBELL COUNTY | 2 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| CAROLINE COUNTY | 15 | 2 | 6 | 0 |
| CARROLL COUNTY | 17 | 5 | 16 | 0 |
| CHARLES CITY COUNTY | 7 | 3 | 14 | 0 |
| CHARLOTTE COUNTY | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CHARLOTTESVILLE CITY | 47 | 12 | 40 | 0 |
| CHESAPEAKE CITY | 174 | 51 | 157 | 0 |
| CHESTERFIELD COUNTY | 483 | 59 | 190 | 0 |
| CLARKE COUNTY | 13 | 4 | 6 | 0 |
| COLONIAL HEIGHTS CITY | 25 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| COVINGTON CITY | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| CRAIG COUNTY | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| CULPEPER COUNTY | 48 | 7 | 22 | 0 |
| CUMBERLAND COUNTY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DANVILLE CITY | 43 | 5 | 13 | 0 |
| DICKENSON COUNTY | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| DINWIDDIE COUNTY | 18 | 6 | 25 | 0 |
| EMPORIA CITY | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ESSEX COUNTY | 8 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| FAIRFAX CITY | 31 | 8 | 24 | 0 |
| FAIRFAX COUNTY | 1404 | 248 | 604 | 2 |
| FALLS CHURCH CITY | 8 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| FAUQUIER COUNTY | 41 | 5 | 11 | 0 |
| FLOYD COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| FLUVANNA COUNTY | 5 | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| FRANKLIN CITY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| FRANKLIN COUNTY | 11 | 5 | 16 | 0 |
| FREDERICK COUNTY | 37 | 4 | 10 | 0 |
| FREDERICKSBURG CITY | 47 | 3 | 10 | 0 |
| GALAX CITY | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GILES COUNTY | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLOUCESTER COUNTY | 9 | 3 | 6 | 1 |
| GOOCHLAND COUNTY | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GRAYSON COUNTY | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| GREENE COUNTY | 16 | 3 | 9 | 0 |
| GREENSVILLE COUNTY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| HALIFAX COUNTY | 10 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| HAMPTON CITY | 134 | 32 | 89 | 0 |
| HANOVER COUNTY | 33 | 4 | 14 | 0 |
| HARRISONBURG CITY | 157 | 9 | 18 | 0 |
| HENRICO COUNTY | 338 | 18 | 80 | 0 |
| HENRY COUNTY | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| HIGHLAND COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| HOPEWELL CITY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY | 4 | 1 | 12 | 0 |
| JAMES CITY COUNTY | 62 | 10 | 33 | 0 |
| KING AND QUEEN COUNTY | 3 | 2 | 7 | 0 |
| KING GEORGE COUNTY | 10 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| KING WILLIAM COUNTY | 3 | 1 | 12 | 0 |
| LANCASTER COUNTY | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| LEE COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LEXINGTON CITY | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| LOUDOUN COUNTY | 464 | 109 | 280 | 0 |
| LOUISA COUNTY | 15 | 3 | 19 | 0 |
| LUNENBURG COUNTY | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LYNCHBURG CITY | 47 | 8 | 22 | 0 |
| MADISON COUNTY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MANASSAS CITY | 104 | 10 | 32 | 0 |
| MANASSAS PARK CITY | 46 | 3 | 9 | 0 |
| MARTINSVILLE CITY | 17 | 4 | 3 | 0 |
| MATHEWS COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MECKLENBURG COUNTY | 15 | 7 | 18 | 0 |
| MIDDLESEX COUNTY | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| MONTGOMERY COUNTY | 31 | 5 | 21 | 1 |
| NELSON COUNTY | 4 | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| NEW KENT COUNTY | 11 | 6 | 22 | 0 |
| NEWPORT NEWS CITY | 228 | 50 | 167 | 0 |
| NORFOLK CITY | 225 | 38 | 144 | 0 |
| NORTHAMPTON COUNTY | 6 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY | 3 | 2 | 7 | 0 |
| NORTON CITY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| NOTTOWAY COUNTY | 9 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| ORANGE COUNTY | 9 | 5 | 13 | 0 |
| PAGE COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| PATRICK COUNTY | 5 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| PETERSBURG CITY | 51 | 7 | 24 | 0 |
| PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY | 19 | 6 | 25 | 0 |
| POQUOSON CITY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| PORTSMOUTH CITY | 114 | 40 | 96 | 0 |
| POWHATAN COUNTY | 5 | 1 | 8 | 0 |
| PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY | 14 | 3 | 11 | 0 |
| PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY | 32 | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY | 903 | 142 | 401 | 1 |
| PULASKI COUNTY | 14 | 4 | 7 | 0 |
| RADFORD CITY | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| RAPPAHANNOCK COUNTY | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| RICHMOND CITY | 336 | 56 | 186 | 1 |
| RICHMOND COUNTY | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ROANOKE CITY | 182 | 12 | 30 | 0 |
| ROANOKE COUNTY | 34 | 4 | 5 | 0 |
| ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| ROCKINGHAM COUNTY | 76 | 16 | 45 | 0 |
| RUSSELL COUNTY | 9 | 3 | 9 | 0 |
| SALEM CITY | 14 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| SCOTT COUNTY | 6 | 4 | 17 | 0 |
| SHENANDOAH COUNTY | 38 | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| SMYTH COUNTY | 10 | 4 | 19 | 0 |
| SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY | 133 | 5 | 12 | 0 |
| STAFFORD COUNTY | 226 | 32 | 71 | 2 |
| STAUNTON CITY | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SUFFOLK CITY | 81 | 30 | 114 | 1 |
| SURRY COUNTY | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SUSSEX COUNTY | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| TAZEWELL COUNTY | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| VIRGINIA BEACH CITY | 374 | 79 | 313 | 0 |
| WARREN COUNTY | 28 | 4 | 12 | 0 |
| WASHINGTON COUNTY | 14 | 4 | 10 | 0 |
| WAYNESBORO CITY | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| WESTMORELAND COUNTY | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| WILLIAMSBURG CITY | 18 | 4 | 6 | 0 |
| WINCHESTER CITY | 45 | 5 | 6 | 0 |
| WISE COUNTY | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| WYTHE COUNTY | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| YORK COUNTY | 37 | 14 | 50 | 0 |
| 8,129 | 1,384 | 4,056 | 10 |
Discussion
Of particular concern is that we can see that there has been a significant order of magnitude (10 x) drop in the number of reported non-citizen removals in the MUS data starting in the MUS covering May 2026. This coincides with the recent aforementioned opinion letter from AG Jones to the Department of Elections that advised ELECT to NOT remove self-identified non-citizens from the rolls. The previous AG (Miyares) made the case that the fact that all of these removals were initiated by individual actions of self-identification via interactions with DMV or the Courts, etc., made the program appropriately “individualized” in accordance with NVRA. The courts had tentatively sided with Miyares argument and ultimately denied the injunction requested by the DOJ, LWV and fellow litigants. However, the case was withdrawn shortly after the election of AG Jones. AG Jones has now taken the opposite stance of Miyares, and is now effectively granting the relief that the DOJ & LWV were requesting in their suit even though the supreme court did not grant the injunction. Because of this new direction to not remove self identified non-citizens, this explains the order of magnitude decrease in the number of non-citizen removals that we observe in the MUS data.
It is important to note that the records identified in the MUS are only those resulting from individuals who were removed from the voter rolls by ELECT after self-identifying as a non-citizen via interactions with DMV, ELECT, or other official avenues, and that the data presented here specifically excludes those individuals that were subsequently reinstated onto the voter rolls.
The fact that a small number of these identified non-citizen registrations are also associated with (presumably … if the data from ELECT is accurate) illegally cast ballots in previous elections does raise a number of questions that citizens should be (politely) asking and discussing with their legislators, elected and appointed government officials. Each act of non-citizen voting is a de-facto disenfranchisement of legal voters rights, and is a punishable offense under VA law.
Additionally, this evidence which is derived from only official state records, directly contradicts multiple news media reports and attestations that non-citizen voting is a “Myth”, and that non-citizen voting happens “almost never”. If the data from ELECT is accurate, then there are at least 4,056 ballots that have been cast by non-citizen voters just since 2019. Now, that is still very infrequent, but it is not “almost never.” It is a legitimate concern … and these discoveries are only the registrations that have been found and removed from the voter roles by ELECT and that we can observe in the data.
It should also be reiterated that these are only the records that we can observe given our data repository, and how often we can realistically purchase and acquire voter history and voter registration information. It is therefore likely that this represents a significant undercount of the occurrences of non-citizen voters and non-citizen voting.
Due to the infrequent nature of these data purchases, it is very likely that some individuals have had their voter history or voter registration information completely removed from the record in between our purchases. Additionally, we know that the MUS data does not entirely encompass all transactions performed on the RVL by the department of elections, so there may be yet other unknown transactions that we are missing.
We do not know how many exist that we do not know about, and with the recent change in guidance from the new AG Jones to ELECT we expect that our ability to observe and report on these issues into the future will be significantly impacted, as ELECT will stop removals of many of these records, and therefore they will not show up in the MUS records, even though they have been correctly flagged via self-identification.