Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened state election officials in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., with criminal prosecution if they refuse to comply with federal demands to screen voter rolls through a troubled citizenship database, according to remarks Friday following President Trump’s primetime election speech.
During a press conference, Mullin said states that decline to participate in the Trump administration’s voter verification program would face federal scrutiny. “The states who choose not to participate with the SAVE program and they choose not to participate in secure elections, we will make sure that we make those states a priority to look at who voted in their states and will hold them, the election officials, accountable,” Mullin stated, according to Democracy Docket.
Mullin’s threat came hours after he sent letters to the secretaries of state in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania warning them about what the administration claims are tens of thousands of non-citizens on their voter rolls. The DHS press release stated that preliminary reviews identified over 250,000 potential non-citizens registered to vote across those four states: 190,832 in California, 35,152 in New Jersey, 15,903 in Nevada, and 14,576 in Pennsylvania.
The secretary demanded the states respond within two weeks and confirm their intentions to collaborate with DHS to “ensure free, fair, and honest elections,” according to the DHS announcement.
The escalation marks a major shift in federal-state tensions over election administration. In recent months, federal courts have repeatedly blocked DHS efforts to access and manipulate state voter rolls. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled in June 2026 that the Trump administration violated several federal laws by transforming the SAVE database—originally designed to verify citizenship for government benefits—into a centralized national citizenship database that pools private information including Social Security records, according to Democracy Docket and Votebeat.
The SAVE database has a documented history of errors. The tool has repeatedly misidentified eligible voters, particularly naturalized citizens, as ineligible to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice and The Texas Tribune. Multiple states have had to correct information provided by SAVE after it flagged eligible voters as non-citizens.
Despite the court rulings and documented accuracy problems, Mullin’s remarks signal the Trump administration’s determination to press forward with federal control over state election procedures. The DHS has tied federal counterterrorism grant funding to state compliance with election security measures, creating financial pressure on states to participate in the SAVE program, according to reporting from The Hill and Reuters.
The Department of Justice separately warned state election officials last week that they could face criminal prosecution over possible noncitizen voting, a move that angered both Republican and Democratic state officials, per Democracy Docket.
Sources
- Democracy Docket — Mullin’s threat to prosecute election officials, details of the SAVE database’s legal challenges, and DOJ warning to election officials
- The Hill — Mullin’s press conference remarks and characterization of his threats to states
- Department of Homeland Security — Official DHS press release with the 250,000 figure and the demand for state response within two weeks
- Votebeat — Federal judge’s ruling blocking DHS use of SAVE database
- Brennan Center for Justice — Documentation of SAVE database false positives and errors
- The Texas Tribune — Reporting on SAVE tool misidentifying voters as noncitizens
