Did the U.S. Census Bureau find that more than 24,000 noncitizens voted illegally in the 2020 election? No, that's not true: While President Donald Trump claimed that a Census Bureau analysis "proves" more than 24,000 noncitizens voted illegally, the report does not say that. It says that more than 24,000 of the voters the Census Bureau could analyze were matched to government records indicating, with high confidence, that they were noncitizens when the 2020 election was held.
The claim appeared in a post and images (archived here) by Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) on Truth Social on Aug. 18, 2026. It read:
The Census Bureau has begun checking the Voter Records from 2020 against their Citizenship Records. On the first 128,000,000 Voters, the Census Bureau proves that over 24,000 Noncitizens voted illegally! The Census Bureau is going to analyze the next 32,000,000 Voters, and this number will explode. I WON THE ELECTION! We must pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
This is what the post looked like on Truth Social at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @realDonaldTrump on Truth Social.)
The Census Bureau (archived here) did not say that more than 24,000 noncitizens voted illegally in 2020. It said something narrower: More than 24,000 voter records were matched to government records suggesting the person might not be a citizen. "Matched" is not the same as "proven."
Here is how the matching worked. The Census Bureau compared a commercial voter list to several federal databases -- immigration records, visa records and others. When it couldn't match people using a Social Security number, it used their name, birth date and address instead. If someone showed up in an immigration record and the Bureau couldn't also find proof they later became a citizen, that person got counted as a noncitizen voter.
That second step -- the absence of citizenship paperwork -- is the problem. It doesn't mean the Bureau found proof someone wasn't a citizen. It means the Bureau didn't find proof they were -- which could happen if a person's citizenship paperwork simply wasn't in the data the Bureau checked.
David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, provided a statement to Lead Stories in an email on Aug. 18, 2026. In part, it said:
This alleged analysis based on Census data fails the laugh test. The administration does not provide a sufficient explanation of how it arrived at these numbers -- and for good reason. Census data cannot be reliably matched to public voter data, as it lacks any unique matching identifiers to compare to those public voter records. Any possible effort to 'match' such data would result in large numbers of false matches.
Even if all 24,000 records turned out to be accurate, that's about 0.015% of the roughly 160 million ballots cast in 2020 -- nowhere near enough to change the outcome. Becker made a similar point. His statement added:
Even assuming these numbers are credible, and they are not, that figure would represent less than 0.02% of all voters in 2020.
That said, it is good to see the administration now admit that these numbers are so small that they could not have altered the outcome of the 2020 election. All of the numbers cited in the Census analysis are smaller than the margins of victory in each state and would not have been enough to change the winner of any state in 2020.
Nor does the Census Bureau's data show which candidate any of the flagged voters supported. The report matches voter records with citizenship-status records; it does not include or analyze how those voters voted. So even if a voter was confirmed to be a noncitizen, the data cannot show whether that person voted for Trump or against him -- undercutting his claim that the review proves he "won the election."
The Census Bureau itself called this a "beginning analysis," not a final finding.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (archived here) makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections for federal office. However, federal law allows noncitizens to vote in certain state or local elections if state or local law permits it and they are kept from voting for federal candidates. Some municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as Washington, D.C., allow noncitizens to vote in certain local elections.
