Story perspectives

Trump claims China stole 220 M voter records, cites 250k non-citizens

7/18/2026

Summary

Story summary

President Donald Trump claimed China obtained 220 million U.S. voter registration records, the largest data compromise ever.
He said a DHS review found over 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Pennsylvania has about 14,576 non-citizens on its rolls out of 8,968,498 voters.
Election experts noted that voting machines lack internet connections and paper ballots enable manual audits, limiting fraud.

History

Historical Context

Cambridge Analytica harvested data from up to 87 million Facebook profiles via Aleksandr Kogan’s 2013 app, a breach exposed by whistleblower Christopher Wylie in March 2018. The scandal forced Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony and led to a $5 billion FTC fine in July 2019. Today, Donald Trump’s claims of Chinese voter-record theft echo the same data-security alarm.

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Story summary

President Donald Trump claimed China obtained 220 million U.S. voter registration records, the largest data compromise ever.
He said a DHS review found over 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Pennsylvania has about 14,576 non-citizens on its rolls out of 8,968,498 voters.
Election experts noted that voting machines lack internet connections and paper ballots enable manual audits, limiting fraud.

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