Office of Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a President Donald Trump supporter, partnered with Homeland Security agents last year to help search for voter fraud in In Ohio.

In October, LaRose referred 167 names of alleged noncitizen voters to the US Justice Department for possible prosecution.

Since then, Homeland Security agents have requested voting files in Ohio for at least 308 people, according to emails the agents sent to local election boards that were reviewed by Reuters.

Most – or 214 of them – never cast a ballot, according to voting records. Among the rest, 64 voted and 20 attempted to vote but had their ballots rejected. Their voting histories for 10 others couldn’t be determined.

Homeland Security interviewed at least 12 of the people whose records it sought in Ohio, including lawful permanent residents and naturalised citizens and initiated deportation proceedings against at least two of them this year, according to two immigration lawyers in Ohio.

LaRose’s office is “very proud” of its efforts on voter rolls, it said in a statement. “We’re working with law enforcement every day to hold accountable those who try to cheat the system, including non-citizens who cast illegal votes.”

In Texas, at least five counties have received Homeland Security subpoenas or other requests for voter records, according to interviews with election officials, voting records and emails between local officials and Homeland Security agents obtained through records requests.

A Homeland Security agent told Roxzine Stinson, the election administrator in heavily Republican Lubbock County that the agency planned to seek voter records from election offices across Texas, Stinson said in an interview. She declined to comment further or disclose how many voters were covered by the subpoena her office received this year.

In Texas’ Webb County, on the Mexico border, election administrator Jose Luis Castillo said Homeland Security has sought records for 10 suspected noncitizen voters since April. Only one appeared to have cast a ballot, he said – once, in 2014, after being inadvertently registered at a driver’s-license office.

Castillo questioned the value of the search. “We aren’t finding what they think is out there.” He has no party affiliation, he said in an interview. We aren’t finding what they think is out there.

In Massachusetts, Homeland Security’s review of voter rolls identified a Canadian national who lived in the state and voted in Democratic primaries and other federal, state and local elections dating to 2008.

State officials were already investigating the case, however, and had filed a complaint in April before the Justice Department charged the man in May with voting as an alien following a joint probe with Homeland Security.

Court records show federal agents were combing voter rolls in other Massachusetts communities for additional suspected noncitizens. The Canadian and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

In an interview, William Galvin, Massachusetts’ Democratic secretary of state, said he supports prosecuting noncitizen voting but was sceptical about deploying federal investigative power at that scale.

“If you are going to comb through five million voters on the chance you might find a non-citizen, is that a good allocation of resources?” he said.

Homeland Security did not respond to questions about its operations in Ohio, Texas and Massachusetts.

Violations of the 1996 statute criminalizing “voting by aliens” – 18 USC 611 – are misdemeanours punishable by up to one year of imprisonment and a maximum $100,000 fine. But penalties historically have been mostly modest, often fines or probation. Judges typically do not have the option of ordering deportations in criminal cases. Expulsions are initiated separately by immigration authorities.

While Trump frequently cites noncitizen voting cases as evidence of fraud, legal scholars say the offense differs from fraud as the term is commonly understood. Fraud typically involves intentional deception.

But under the federal statute, prosecutors need only show that a person was not a citizen and cast a ballot. They do not need to prove the person intended to deceive election officials or knowingly violate the law.

“It’s misleading,” University of Idaho College of Law professor Benjamin Cover said of equating noncitizen voting with fraud. “There’s no fraud element in the statute.”

The crackdown is also sweeping up an unknown number of legitimate voters. To find suspected noncitizen voters, federal investigators have relied heavily on a national database – Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE.

It was created in 1986 to verify the immigration status of applicants for public benefits such as food and housing.

The Trump administration expanded SAVE last year, adding new data sources and encouraging states to use it for large-scale reviews of voter rolls. Justice Department lawyers acknowledged in court that the system could incorrectly flag some naturalized US citizens, but argued the risk was too small to justify stopping its use.

At least 18 Republican-led states adopted the revamped system. Then, in June, a federal judge in Washington barred its use for voter verification, ruling that the changes made the system less accurate and risked disenfranchising eligible voters.

A ruling this month by a federal court in Florida ordered Homeland Security to restore use for four Republican-led states. The conflicting rulings have yet to be resolved.

Texas ran its nearly 19 million registered voters through SAVE last year and identified 2,724 people across 177 counties who, state officials said, needed to prove their citizenship. The secretary of state ordered counties to notify those voters and give them 30 days to provide documentation or face suspension from the rolls.

Data collected by the Texas Association of County Election Officials from 40 counties showed that, as of May, about 100 people had provided proof of citizenship, while more than 900 did not respond and had their registrations suspended. We could not determine whether any of those suspended were noncitizens.

The Texas Secretary of State’s office said counties are responsible for reviewing voters flagged through SAVE and that many are still evaluating the data.

In Indiana, officials last year identified 1,611 people they said had not been citizens upon obtaining driver’s licenses or other state identification documents, and gave them 30 days to prove their eligibility or face removal from the voter rolls.

The group represented a tiny fraction – 0.03% – of Indiana’s 4.8 million registered voters in 2024, and many appeared to be naturalized US citizens, Reuters found. The office of Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales, a Republican, did not respond to a request for comment.

One was Lucinda Delgado, a 39-year-old mother of three in Indianapolis. She emigrated from the Dominican Republic in 1993 at age seven, became a citizen in 2021 and registered to vote in 2025. Under Indiana law, voters don’t register a party affiliation.

In March, after receiving a letter from her local election board demanding proof of citizenship within 30 days, she sent a copy of her naturalization certificate.

Delgado remained on the rolls and has yet to decide who to support in November’s election. Still, she worries about older voters and others who may struggle to navigate the paperwork or quickly locate documents needed to prove their eligibility.

“They’re never going to be able to vote,” she said.

• A Reuters report