Conservatives are warning about noncitizens voting. It's a myth with a long history

For those looking to raise doubts about American elections, it's becoming clear that a key 2024 voting boogeyman will be immigration.

The false notion that undocumented immigrants are affecting federal elections has been floating around for over 100 years, experts say, but this year, due in part to an increase in migrants at the southern U.S. border, the idea could have new potency.

The narratives are being pushed by prominent right-wing figures including Cleta Mitchell, a former adviser to Donald Trump, along with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee himself.

NPR acquired a two-page memo Mitchell has been circulating laying out "the threat of non-citizen voting in 2024."

"I absolutely believe this is intentional, and one of the reasons the Biden administration is allowing all these illegals to flood the country," Mitchell said on a conservative radio show in Illinois last month. "They're taking them into counties across the country, so that they can get those people registered, they can vote them."

Trump has made the same claims on the campaign trail. And even Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and owner of X, has used his social media platform to push the baseless idea to millions of people.

"[Democrats] are importing voters," Musk wrote in a post about undocumented immigrants on March 5 that X claims has been seen more than 23 million times.

It's illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and numerous studies over the years have found that it almost never happens, but voting experts still worry the claims could take hold at a time when huge numbers of Republicans simultaneously don't trust elections and see immigration as the top problem facing the country.

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