On August 18, 2026, the Census Bureau released a report claiming that more than 24,000 noncitizens illegally voted in the 2020 presidential election, based on an analysis of 128 million individual voter records. Trump posted “I WON THE ELECTION!” and predicted the number would “explode” once analysts processed the remaining 32 million records. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose department oversees the bureau, posted “It's just the beginning,” predicting the next analysis “will likely show tens of thousands of additional illegal voters.”
Taken at face value, 24,000 votes would amount to less than 0.02 percent of the roughly 160 million ballots cast in 2020, which Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes nationally. The commercial voter data came from Data-Clear, a Virginia firm that received a $649,500 federal contract in 2024. Robert Santos, the former Census director, called the publication an obvious “hijack by the White House,” and David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation & Research said, “This alleged analysis based on Census data fails the laugh test.”
The report did not come from the bureau's career staff. CNN, citing three former bureau officials who served under Trump, reported that earlier this year the administration installed a group of partisan analysts from the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute inside the Census Bureau. NPR reported that the analysis was not done by career civil servants and that the team behind it included people affiliated with the think tank. The day after the report, in an unannounced revision dated August 19, the Commerce Department removed language banning political interference from its scientific integrity policy, NPR reported. TPM reported that governance changes made a newly created, politically appointed position a co-chair of the bureau's Data Stewardship Executive Policy Committee; that role is held by Michael Lachanski, a two-time Claremont Institute fellow.
The Census Bureau, Commerce Department and White House did not respond to CNN's requests for comment, and the think tank did not respond to CNN or NPR (see DHS Claims 250,000 Noncitizens Are Registered to Vote in Four States. Fact-Checkers and the States Say the Number Is Wildly Inflated. and Trump's Census Bureau Proposes Counting Only Citizens and Green Card Holders for Apportionment in 2030, and Dropping the Race Question Asked Since 1790).