Pennsylvania election officials are pushing back against renewed claims from the Trump administration that large numbers of non-citizens may be appearing on voter rolls, while new research shows many young eligible voters in the state are not registering at the same rate as their peers elsewhere.
The two issues — election security and voter participation — are emerging as key questions ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Carter Walker covers elections for Votebeat Pennsylvania. He joined Radio Chatskill to discuss what the claims about non-citizen voting mean, what safeguards already exist, and why Pennsylvania’s youngest voters are registering at some of the lowest rates among states studied.
President Donald Trump recently highlighted allegations of election vulnerabilities, including claims from the Department of Homeland Security that hundreds of thousands of non-citizens were identified on voter rolls across several states, including Pennsylvania.
But Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt has disputed the suggestion that non-citizen voting is occurring on a large scale.
Walker said Schmidt’s response has been that isolated cases can happen, but available evidence does not show widespread voting by people who are not eligible.
“He is not one who’s going to say that there’s no non-citizens on our voter rolls because we don’t have a national citizenship database in this country,” Walker said.
Without a nationwide citizenship database, Walker said, election officials acknowledge that some people may occasionally appear on voter rolls incorrectly.
But he said Schmidt’s position is that those cases are rare.
“What the evidence has shown over the years,” Walker said, is that “this does happen in various very small quantities.”
Existing safeguards and enforcement
Pennsylvania already has multiple safeguards designed to prevent people who are not eligible from registering or voting.
Walker said the most significant safeguard is that it is illegal for a non-citizen to register or vote, and violations can carry serious consequences, including potentially affecting a person’s ability to obtain citizenship.
Voter registration applications also request information such as a Social Security number or driver’s license number. But Walker said those identifiers are not absolute proof of citizenship because not every citizen has those documents, and non-citizens may be able to obtain some forms of identification.
He said election systems in the United States differ from some other countries because the U.S. does not maintain a national citizenship database or universal citizenship identification system.
Walker said he has not seen evidence that non-citizen voting has affected the outcome of elections in Pennsylvania.
Election confidence heading into 2026
Walker said the larger concern among election officials is how repeated claims of widespread fraud could affect public confidence.
He said election workers are preparing to conduct the 2026 elections as they have previous elections, but that public trust remains essential.
“Elections essentially are a trust-based exercise,” Walker said. “It’s how our society determines how we want to shape ourselves and people can’t trust that system, then it defeats the entire purpose.”
Young voter registration declines
Walker is also reporting on a separate election issue: declining voter registration among young people.
A study from the Civic Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on youth voter registration, found that Pennsylvania ranked near the bottom among states studied for registration rates among 18-year-olds.
Walker said the research found that about 22% of eligible 18-year-olds in Pennsylvania were registered to vote, compared with much higher rates in some other states.
He said the difference appears to be less about young people’s interest in politics and more about how registration systems work.
Walker pointed to Oregon, where young people can pre-register at age 16. That means their registration is ready when they become eligible to vote at 18.
Pennsylvania’s system creates a narrower window.
Walker said many young people obtain driver’s licenses around age 16, but Pennsylvania’s registration rules mean some of those same young people may not yet be eligible to register.
“That matters because most people don’t actually think about elections until a couple of weeks before it, maybe even the week before,” Walker said. “And at that point, in most states, it’s too late to register.”
Impact on future elections
Walker said lower registration rates among young voters mean fewer voices are represented in elections.
“We’re missing an important voice among our electorate when we’re not registering them,” he said.
He added that schools and community organizations are working to improve registration efforts, including through programs that recognize schools with high registration rates among eligible students.
But he said Pennsylvania’s deadlines can make that challenging, particularly for students who turn 18 between primary and general elections.
Image: Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt walks out before delivering remarks on the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026. This week, Schmidt replied to a letter from the Trump administration that warned he could face criminal prosecution related to noncitizen voting. (Kriston Jae Bethel for Votebeat)