X owner Elon Musk has also helped spread this conspiracy theory. In July, he wrote on X that “the goal of the Democratic Party has always been to import as many illegal voters as possible.” Trump even repeated this claim last week during the presidential debate. “Our elections are bad,” Trump said. “And a lot of these illegal immigrants that are coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote.”
Now, as Trump’s cronies spread this lie at a hyperlocal level, experts are worrying about the danger it poses to voters and non-voters alike.
“These efforts can lead to intimidation, such as when activists from the Election Integrity Network show up at the polls and question the eligibility of non-English speaking or non-white voters,” Fischer says.
Many volunteers on calls organized by the Election Integrity Network also repeated rumors and conspiracies, some related to allegations that pro-democracy NGOs were registering immigrants across the country.
“I would also like to see TV spots or billboards in Spanish that specifically warn that if you are not a citizen and you vote, it is a crime and you are facing immediate deportation, something like that, in a very clear way,” Pat, a participant, said at a meeting. She added that the messaging should be targeted directly to Spanish-speaking communities, which would lead “a lot of people to say, ‘I’m not going to vote.’”
In some cases, the speakers raised completely unheard conspiracy theories. A Tennessee woman, Patty King, said on an August 22 call that they had “identified illegal immigrants who registered in homeless shelters. I have over 564,” adding: “Proving that and then proving that they voted is another very big problem.”
Several participants in the calls identified themselves as election officials, poll workers and representatives of their local Republican Party.
One of the participants in a recent call was Deanna De’Liberto, who was recently appointed by his local Republican Party as a presidential elector for North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District. De’Liberto has raised a conspiracy about Immigrants distort electoral maps in favor of the Democrats.
The meetings also featured a number of high-profile speakers, including Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. The Heritage Foundation, the ultra-conservative group behind the dystopia Project 2025 plan, has been at the forefront of false propaganda that non-citizens are voting in droves. The group has also released a number of “explosive” undercover videos purporting to show how non-citizens can obtain fake documents; a recent New York Times investigation denied the claims made in a number of these videos.
“(The Biden administration) is mobilizing this massive, government-funded get-out-the-voter operation targeted at its preferred demographics, which obviously includes illegal immigrants,” Howell told those listening, without providing any evidence to support the claim.
And last week, Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who is the lead sponsor of the SAVE Act in the House, spoke at the weekly meeting, taking questions from attendees and urging everyone to continue promoting the conspiracy theory. Days earlier, Mitchell had appeared at a Judiciary Committee hearing chaired by Roy on Capitol Hill, discussing the same topic.
