Donald Trump and his allies quickly seized on an announcement from Mikie Sherrill, the New Jersey governor, on Tuesday that 6,600 noncitizens had registered to vote because of a software error, and fewer than 400 of them voted, using the disclosure to escalate false claims that there are scores of noncitizens on the voter rolls.
Trump seized on the news days after he said in a primetime speech that the Department of Homeland Security identified 278,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls in New Jersey and three other states. But a Guardian review of the letters the DHS sent the states shows the agency expressed less certainty about the number and has offered no explanation of its methodology.
