After nearly a week of protests in Los Angeles against recent federal immigration enforcement sweeps in the city, President Trump doubled down on his administration’s efforts to detain and deport immigrants without documentation, claiming they are a key voting bloc in Democratic cities.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said Los Angeles and “other such cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use illegal aliens to expand their voter base, cheat in elections, and grow the welfare state, robbing good paying jobs and benefits from hardworking American citizens.”
But according to Los Angeles County election officials, that’s simply not true.
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“That claim is false and unsupported, and only serves to create unsubstantiated concern and confusion about the electoral process,” the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office said in a statement.
In reality, the county has safeguards in place to ensure only eligible voters cast ballots and that all votes are accurately counted, said Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the county’s Registrar-Recorder’s office.
How do people become registered voters in California?
In the state of California there are five requirements a person must meet to register to vote, according to the California Secretary of State. To register an individual must be:
- A U.S. citizen.
- A resident of California.
- At least 18 years or older on or before Election Day.
- Not currently serving a state or federal prison term for the conviction of a felony.
- Not currently found mentally incompetent to vote by a court.
When a person meets the eligibility criteria, they can register to vote which includes attesting under penalty of perjury that they meet all eligibility requirements, including being a U.S. citizen and a resident of California, said Sanchez.
“This sworn statement is a legal declaration and serves as the foundation of the voter registration process,” Sanchez said.
Voting as a noncitizen is a felony that can lead to a year in jail or deportation, said Hasen.
Though there are some cities in the United States where noncitizens can participate in local elections, for example in communities in Vermont and Maryland, participation is limited to voting in school board or city council elections.
In California, San Francisco is the only city where noncitizens can vote and it is limited to the school board.
How does Los Angeles County verify who is voting in federal elections?
Once a voter registers, their personal information is verified through the State Voter Registration database, which is done by cross-checking state Department of Motor Vehicle records or the last four digits of the person’s Social Security number, Sanchez said.
When the verification process is complete, a voter does not have to show their identification when voting in person. If verification has not occurred, the voter must show identification the first time they vote. Acceptable forms of identification include a driver’s license, state-issued I.D or passport; the California Secretary of State has a complete online list of what identifying documents to take to the polling place.
Once polling places open for voters within the county, the voter must sign a roster in the presence of election workers, who attest to their identity and eligibility.
“Elections officials also conduct regular voter roll maintenance, checking against several data points including death records from the California Department of Public Health, Social Security Administration, Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,” the California Secretary of State told The Times in a statement.
For vote-by-mail ballots, the signature on the return envelope is compared to the one on file in the voter registration record, Sanchez said. If the signature does not match or is missing, the voter is contacted and given a chance to correct it.
“Only verified ballots are accepted and counted,” he said.
Where do the claims about undocumented immigrants voting originate?
The claim that immigrants lacking documentation vote in large numbers — and for Democrats — has been repeated for years.
It has seeds in the once-fringe racist conspiracy theory called the “great replacement.” According to a poll by the Associated Press and and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 1 in 3 Americans now believe “an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.”
The theory has gained momentum under Trump.
In 2016, Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency, but not the popular vote. That went to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who received about 2.9 million more votes.
Trump then claimed, without evidence, that he would have won the popular vote if 3 to 5 million immigrants living in the country illegally hadn’t voted.
“About 3 million votes was the margin by which he lost the popular vote which is why I think he chose that 3 million number to try to explain away his popular vote loss,” Hasen said.
After losing his reelection bid in 2020 to Joe Biden, when voting by mail was a focus, Trump refocused on immigrants lacking authorization in the 2024 campaign and was ultimately voted back into the White House.
“In 2024, when I think Trump and the Republicans concluded that the attacks on absentee ballots were actually hurting them because people don’t want to show up in person to vote, the shift went back to immigration,” Hasen said.
Voter fraud claims echo whomever is trying to dictate the political narrative, according to Hasen.
Researchers have found, repeatedly through decades of investigation, that fraud conducted by voters at the polls is virtually nonexistent and does not happen “on a scale even close to that necessary to “rig” an election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Many instances of reported fraud were due to clerical errors or human errors.
“I think one of the things we’ve seen is people on the losing end of elections tend to be more likely to believe that there’s cheating,” Hasen said. “But Donald Trump has really supercharged things to the point where we’re way beyond what we normally see in terms of partisan divisions.”
But Trump is not alone in fueling that theory recently. Last year as he campaigned for Trump, billionaire Elon Musk repeated those claims on his social media platform, X.
“If the Democratic party gains enough voters to win an election by importing them and giving them free stuff, then they will do so,” he posted in September.
So is the number of undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles growing?
Yes, but likely not at the rate it once was, said Manuel Paster, professor of sociology and American studies at USC.
California’s immigrant population — including those without authorization — increased by 5% (about 500,000) from 2010 to 2023, compared to 14% (1.27 million) from 2000 to 2010, and by 37% (2.4 million) rise in the 1990s, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Between 2019 and 2022, the population of undocumented immigrants in most states across the nation steadily climbed. California’s however, decreased, according to the Pew Research Center.
These days, most new immigrants are going to Florida, Texas and the South rather than high-cost California, Pastor said.
“Los Angeles, more than 70% of our undocumented immigrants have been in the country for longer than a decade,” he said. “They’re more likely to be long established employees, parents, parts of faith institutions.”
