Experts raise alarms over Census Bureau report Trump is touting on noncitizen voting

President Trump is joined by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees the Census Bureau, as he speaks in the White House's Oval Office in 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption

A highly unusual Census Bureau report that President Trump is using to reup dubious claims of widespread illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens has ties to a Trump-aligned think tank, NPR has learned.

In a social media post Tuesday, Trump claimed that the bureau's initial analysis of more than 128 million voter records "proves that over 24,000 Noncitizens voted illegally" in the 2020 presidential election and that the final number will "explode" after the statistical agency finishes checking over 32 million more voter records.

The unauthored, seven-page report says it draws on a 2020 commercial voter file and various federal administrative records, but data and election experts say the report is questionable in its methodology and conclusions.

Work on the analysis was not conducted by career civil servants at the Census Bureau, and the team behind it included individuals affiliated with the America First Policy Institute, a think tank started by officials from Trump's first administration, according to a Census Bureau employee who NPR has agreed not to name because they fear retaliation at work.

Spokespeople for the bureau, the America First Policy Institute and the White House did not respond to NPR's requests for comment.

But AFPI highlighted the analysis in a social media post Tuesday, saying that the think tank "maintains that maximizing transparency is a critical step to restoring confidence in our elections."

Trump continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was rigged, and in the final stretch before this fall's midterm election has urged his Republican allies in Congress to pass sweeping new voting restrictions .