False claim new no-ID voters are 'skyrocketing' in Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona | Fact check
The claim: Two million people have registered to vote without photo ID in Texas, Pennsylvania and Arizona in 2024
An April 3 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) purports to share facts about newly registered voters in the U.S.
"The number of voters registering without a photo ID is SKYROCKETING in 3 key swing states: Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania," the post reads in part. It continues:
Since the start of 2024:TX: 1,250,710 PA: 580,513 AZ: 220,731.
A similar post on X, formerly Twitter, was reposted 25,000 times.
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Our rating: False
This post drastically overstates the number of new registrations – regardless of identification type. New registrations between the three states totaled less than 200,000 when this post was made, about 10% of the number claimed. The post appears to be based on a misunderstanding of a federal database.
Post falsely presents inflated voter registration numbers for 2024
Election officials said the post provides incorrect year-to-date voter registration numbers for each of the three states mentioned, regardless of whether an individual registered with or without photo identification, which Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said federal law allows.
In an April 3 statement, Nelson said voter rolls in Texas increased by 57,711 voters since the beginning of 2024. She said that's less than the number of people who registered in the same timeframe in 2022 (65,000) and in 2020 (about 104,000).
In Arizona, about 60,000 new voters have registered in 2024, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said in an April 3 post on X. Richer said Arizona's voter rolls have "actually been going down." In Maricopa County, the state's most populous county, active registered voters decreased from 2.6 million in 2020 to 2.4 million in 2024, he said.
And in Pennsylvania, there were more than 76,000 new-voter registrations as of April 3, said Amy Gulli, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State. That's less than the nearly 102,000 new-voter registrations in the same timeframe in 2020, she said in an email.
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The voter registration numbers cited in the post appear to be based on data reported by the Social Security Administration's Help America Vote Verification system, or HAVV. The data is not a state-by-state tally of newly registered voters, however.
The HAVV system was developed to comply with requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the Social Security Administration's website notes. States submit requests to the agency for new voters who do not present a valid driver's license during the voter-registration process. HAVV verifies the accuracy of the name, date of birth and last four digits of the Social Security number submitted.
Gulli said Pennsylvania uses the HAVV system to check partial Social Security numbers not only for voter-registration applications, but also for absentee and mail-in-ballot applications. In many cases, she said, the same voter's partial Social Security number is checked more than once in a single year.
"The HAVV data cited in the social media post represents only the raw number of transactions that Pennsylvania counties sent for SSN verification," Gulli said. "The data does not represent the numbers of newly registered voters, and any representation that they do is false."
The post also implies that people entering the U.S. illegally are registering to vote in large numbers, but that's not allowed in any federal or state elections.
"To vote in federal and state elections, you need to demonstrate you are a citizen, period," Evelyn Cruz, clinical professor of law at Arizona State University, said in an email. "Reported cases of noncitizens trying to register to vote do happen, but often as a misunderstanding, and rarely do we see noncitizens who actually voted."
Some jurisdictions allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, but Cruz said this is uncommon.
The Facebook user who shared the post did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Our fact-check sources:
Stephen Richer, April 3, X post
Evelyn Cruz, April 5, Email exchange with USA TODAY
Amy Gulli, April 5, Email exchange with USA TODAY
Jane Nelson, April 3, Statement on Voter Registration ID Requirements
U.S. Election Assistance Commission, accessed April 17, Help America Vote Act of 2002
Social Security Administration, accessed April 17, Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) Transactions by State
USAGov, Feb. 20, Who can and cannot vote
USAGov, Feb. 16, How to register to vote
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim new voters 'skyrocketing' in 3 swing states | Fact check