Idaho secretary of state: targeted voter‑roll review flagged dozens but found no noncitizen votes

Secretary of State Phil McGrane told the Senate State Affairs Committee on March 17 that his office completed a statewide review of voter‑registration records aimed at verifying citizenship and improving roll accuracy.

The office ran just over 1,000,000 registered voters through data matches with the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) and federal records, McGrane said. "Of those 1,000,000 registered voters, 678 of them were initially flagged," he said, and after working with DHS the list "winnowed down to 53 truly potential noncitizens." McGrane said the office then referred cases to county clerks; "there were a total of 36 where we tasked the county clerks in those counties to contact the voters," and 34 registrations were removed. He added, "I can say with confidence that none of those 34 voted in our elections."

McGrane described the review as twofold: routine maintenance that county clerks perform and a one‑time, executive‑order‑driven effort to verify citizenship in advance of the general election. He said the state works with ITD, Vital Statistics, the Department of Corrections and DHS to maintain the rolls and to catch deaths, moves, felon convictions and other changes. "We work very closely with the Idaho Transportation Department," he said, and credited ITD staff for assistance in the matches.

Committee members asked about several technical and process details. Senator Burnt asked when children who automatically naturalize after a parent's naturalization receive documentation; McGrane said federal recordkeeping for those derivative cases is limited and that the state had to work with DHS for validation. Senator Rechte asked what the "list maintenance purge" is; McGrane said it is the scheduled removal after a general election of voters who have not voted in the last four years, noting Idaho's statutory four‑year period differs from the eight‑year period used by many states under federal guidance.

McGrane said several causes explain why a noncitizen could appear on the rolls, including data‑entry errors and past registration interfaces at social‑service agencies. He described corrective steps the office has taken, including system flags to block noncitizen registrations at entry and county clerk notifications. "We've done it at scale," McGrane said of the statewide review, and he said the office will continue the process annually.

The committee did not take action on legislation tied to the review at the hearing; McGrane noted House Bill 339 had been pulled from the day's agenda but said that proposal would provide the office additional tools it is already using.