Jury rejection lists fail to find noncitizen voters in Chester County check

Investigative outlets Votebeat and Spotlight PA examined 13 individuals identified as potential noncitizen voters in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and found none had registered to vote before gaining citizenship. The two organizations replicated a process used by the local Republican committee to cross-reference county records with state voter rolls. The results show that the method relies on incomplete data and can produce false matches.

The scrutiny began after the Republican Committee of Chester County sent a letter to the Board of Elections in August. The committee claimed it found more than 180 potential noncitizen voters by comparing the county’s list of jury rejections with the voter roll. They provided a spreadsheet of these names to county commissioners and demanded a response regarding transparency and accountability.

Activists have promoted this matching technique nationwide. Scott Presler, who leads Early Vote Action, said in a September post on X that he planned to acquire non-juror records for all 67 Pennsylvania counties. He claimed to have found noncitizens in every county, including Republican-leaning areas. Presler said the method has flagged more than 5,000 Pennsylvania voters, though he has not released the results for independent verification.

Votebeat and Spotlight PA obtained the Chester County non-juror list through a public records request. They compared it to the state voter roll, ensuring matches aligned on political party and registration dates. They then contacted roughly two-thirds of the flagged voters by email to verify their citizenship status and jury service history. Thirteen of those contacted replied.

Among the 13 respondents, twelve were naturalized citizens. For all twelve, their naturalization date was on or before their voter registration date. One respondent was a U.S.-born citizen. Only one person appeared to have registered before becoming a citizen. Upon inquiry, the county found a data entry error. A worker had updated the registration date of a different person with the same first name and birthday. The county is currently correcting the record.

Jon Veurink, executive vice chair of the Chester County GOP, called the findings good detective work. He stated that the committee hopes the results hold true across the board but wants the county to follow a specific process to ensure no noncitizens vote. He did not specify what that process would entail.

The Pennsylvania Department of State warned earlier in the year that non-juror lists are not a useful tool for verifying voter rolls. Geoff Morrow, a spokesperson for the department, said analyses relying on faulty methodologies can lead to inaccurate results and false claims about citizenship. The department noted that these lists lack critical identifiers such as birthdates, addresses, and unique ID numbers.

Without those identifiers, it is difficult to distinguish between two people with the same name. The lists also may be outdated. Some voters told the investigators they were noncitizens when they received a jury summons years ago, but they later naturalized and then registered to vote. This timing gap explains why they appear on the rejection list despite currently holding citizenship.

Wren Orey, managing director of the elections project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, noted that states like Texas have tried this method before and found the data unreliable. Orey cited a California pilot program where every person identified as a noncitizen on the juror list had naturalized after the list was created but before registering. That county abandoned the program because the source of information was unhelpful.

Andrew Kreider, a spokesperson for Chester County, said the county met with the Republican committee in August to explain these limitations. He stated that the county is committed to protecting election integrity and will act quickly to address specific and verifiable accusations of voter fraud in compliance with federal and state law. The county continues to correct the specific data entry error identified in the review.