Noncitizen Ballots? Harrisburg’s Own Files

Conservative activist Scott Presler is sounding the alarm on noncitizen voter registrations in Pennsylvania, pointing to the state’s own paper trail as proof the problem is real.

Quick Take

Scott Presler raised concerns about noncitizen voting while registering voters at the York State Fair in Pennsylvania.
A 2017 state legislative hearing found 1,160 self-reported noncitizen registration cancellations, with 769 tracing back to the Motor Voter system.
That same review found 544 ballots cast by people later identified as possible noncitizens.
The Department of Homeland Security claims 250,000 noncitizens are registered across four states, including 14,576 in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania officials dispute the larger figures but acknowledge past registration flaws tied to motor vehicle offices.

Presler Puts a Spotlight on Pennsylvania

Scott Presler, known for his grassroots voter registration drives, used a stop at the York State Fair in Pennsylvania to raise the noncitizen voting issue directly with voters. His message lands in a state with a documented history of noncitizens ending up on the rolls, giving his warnings real weight instead of vague suspicion.

Pennsylvania is one of the most closely watched swing states in presidential elections. Even small numbers of ineligible votes can matter in a state that has been decided by thin margins in recent cycles, which is why Presler’s message resonates with voters worried about election integrity.

State Records Confirm the Problem Is Not Invented

A 2017 Pennsylvania legislative hearing is the clearest paper trail on this issue. Analysts told lawmakers they found 1,160 statewide records of registrants who self-reported and canceled their registration because they were not citizens. About 66 percent of those, or 769 people, had first registered through the state’s Motor Voter system.

The same testimony revealed that 544 ballots were cast by people later identified as possible noncitizens during the period reviewed. That number came directly from state analysis, not outside estimates, making it hard to dismiss as partisan noise.

A separate review of Allegheny County found 139 instances of noncitizen registration and cancellation between 2006 and 2018, with 71 percent of those cases surfacing only because the noncitizen voluntarily reported their own status. Officials had no system actively catching these registrations on their own.

The Motor Voter Loophole Goes Back Decades

Court filings from the Public Interest Legal Foundation state that Pennsylvania’s Department of Motor Vehicles allowed noncitizens to register through the motor voter process for decades. The group’s own analysis of state data put the number of potentially noncitizen or ineligible registered voters at around 100,000.

Pennsylvania’s own Auditor General, Timothy DeFoor, later reviewed voter registration forms sent from the state’s transportation department to the Department of State between January and June of 2024, examining the same motor-voter pipeline for weaknesses. Former Pennsylvania election official Al Schmidt has said a separate glitch in the motor voter system led to 168 noncitizens registering to vote.

Trump Administration Raises the National Stakes

The Trump administration has pushed the issue to a national scale. The Department of Homeland Security claims reviews of four states found 190,832 noncitizen registrations in California, 35,152 in New Jersey, 15,903 in Nevada, and 14,576 in Pennsylvania, adding up to roughly 250,000 total.

🚨 WOW! Scott Presler raised concerns about noncitizen voting while registering voters at the York State Fair in Pennsylvania.
He argued that close elections can be decided by just a few hundred votes, pointing to the 2008 Minnesota Senate race and citing claims about noncitizens pic.twitter.com/yK0lDdLnEL

— John F. Kennedy JR ~The 17th Letter (@johnfkennedy665) August 1, 2026

Pennsylvania’s Department of State has pushed back hard on that figure, calling it unsubstantiated and demanding the federal government explain how it calculated the number. State officials say their own review found no evidence supporting a count anywhere near that size, and they dispute the methodology behind it.

Fact-checkers and outside groups note that confirmed noncitizen voting cases remain a small fraction of Pennsylvania’s roughly 8.5 million registered voters, and no confirmed cases have been tied to swinging a statewide result. That caveat matters, but it does not erase the documented registration failures Pennsylvania’s own hearings and audits have already put on the record.

For voters who have spent years hearing their concerns about election security dismissed, Pennsylvania’s own transcripts and audits offer something rare: government-confirmed proof that the motor voter system let noncitizens onto the rolls, and that some of them cast ballots. That is the foundation Presler is building on as he keeps pressing the issue on the ground in Pennsylvania.