Experts question US Census Bureau report on noncitizen voting
WASHINGTON: A US Census Bureau report claiming more than 20,000 noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election has raised doubts over the impartiality of the influential but normally non-partisan agency.
The US Census Bureau's recent report claiming over 20,000 noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election has sparked concerns about the integrity of the agency. This assertion, which lacks solid evidence, has been utilized by former President Donald Trump to fuel his conspiracy theories surrounding the election's legitimacy.
The bureau's analysis, asserting high confidence in the figure, was seized upon by Trump as compelling proof to support his claims of election fraud. However, doubts have been cast by experts and former Census Bureau officials regarding the report's validity. They argue that the methodology used in the study is flawed, and question the lack of attribution and other red flags concerning research integrity.
It was revealed that the analysis was not conducted by the bureau's usual cadre of civil servants, but rather by a team with ties to the America First Policy Institute, a think tank linked to Trump's administration during his first term. The bureau and the think tank have not yet responded to queries for clarification. The report was based on a comparison between federal administrative records and a voter file dataset sourced from Data-Clear, a Virginia-based firm.
The company's president, Carolyn Carlson, confirmed that the voter file records did not include citizenship status, and that the firm did not participate in the analysis. Michael Morley, director of Florida State University's Election Law Center, pointed out potential sources of error in dataset matching, such as outdated information due to variations in data collection times.
Despite the report's claims, even if all 24,000 votes were proven to have been cast by noncitizens, this statistic represents less than 0.02 percent of the total votes cast in 2020, and would not have altered the election's outcome. Additionally, the records do not reveal which candidate received these votes, thus failing to substantiate Trump's assertion that all these ballots went to his opponent.
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Also reported by 1 other outlet
- Experts question U.S. Census Bureau report on noncitizen voting nationalpost.com
