The Trump administration has a new way of leaning on the people who run our elections: threatening to put them in prison.

On July 7, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice sent letters to election officials in at least 14 states warning that they could face criminal prosecution if they knowingly leave noncitizens on their voter rolls or let noncitizens cast ballots in federal elections. That's according to reporting by Votebeat, a nonprofit newsroom that covers how elections are actually run.

There's just one thing missing from the threat: the crime.

What the letters say

The letter to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was signed by Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. It gives Michigan five days to explain how it will make sure only citizens vote.

Then comes the part meant to scare: state election officials, the letter says, "could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting" violations of laws barring noncitizens from voting. Knowingly keeping noncitizens on the rolls and counting their ballots, it warns, would count as casting false votes.

At least 13 other states — including Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee — got letters with identical language. In some states, the DOJ didn't even send it to the right person: it went to the generic public email address listed on the agency's website. As one official put it, "I had to go look for it."

The problem they're describing barely happens

Here's the key fact the DOJ leaves out. Every state already has rules and procedures to stop noncitizens from voting. And study after study, plus the states' own audits, have found that noncitizen voting is extremely rare.

So the letters, in the words of the reporting, are "unlikely to have an immediate practical effect." They don't fix a real problem. They send a message.

Election officials from both parties said as much. Michigan's office said the DOJ already knows exactly how the state checks eligibility: "While all this information is either in the DOJ's possession or easy reach, we will be happy to provide it again to help address any confusion." Georgia's office said it has "led the nation in keeping American elections for American citizens only." Arizona's Secretary of State said his state would keep "following Arizona law — not directions that come from political rhetoric or intimidation."

Experts say the quiet part out loud: it's intimidation

The people who study elections were blunt about what this is.

David Becker, who runs the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, pointed out that if the government actually believed a crime had been committed, it wouldn't send a warning letter. "If you really thought they committed a crime, you wouldn't be sending them a letter," he said. "You'd be bringing criminal indictments." He called the letters "a last-ditch attempt" to pressure officials — and noted that even when the threats don't work, answering them drains time and energy from running elections. "It's not a threat to the public servants who run elections, but it is exhausting."

UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen was even more direct: "This is in line with the Trump administration's efforts to push the myth of mass noncitizen voting and to threaten and intimidate state and local election officials. They will try every lever and threat to keep this issue in the news."

Why they're reaching for threats

The letters didn't come out of nowhere. They came after the administration kept losing in court.

Key parts of Trump's executive order on mail voting were recently blocked by a judge. And according to the reporting, the Justice Department has not won a single lawsuit it has brought trying to get access to state voter rolls. When you can't win in court, a threatening letter is what's left.

There's an ugly irony buried in the fine print, too. The DOJ's own memo tells election officials to protect their systems using a federal cybersecurity toolkit. But earlier this year, the administration cut the federal funding for the very program that gave election offices free cybersecurity help. So the administration is threatening officials for not doing enough to secure elections — after taking away the help it used to give them to do it.

Why it matters

This is how you chip away at democracy without changing a single law: you make the ordinary, nonpartisan people who count our votes afraid of prison for doing their jobs. You keep a made-up "noncitizen voting" scare in the headlines. You demand answers in five days, again and again, until the clerks and secretaries running your local elections are worn down.

The threat here isn't really about noncitizens on the rolls — the states already handle that, and everyone involved knows it. The threat is the point. We deserve better.

Source

This post is based on reporting by Jessica Huseman for Votebeat, published via the Michigan Advance: DOJ warns election officials they could be criminally charged over noncitizen voters.