How local GOP officials are embracing Trump’s tactics to hunt for voter fraud | CNN Politics

Local Republican officials across the country are taking aggressive steps to probe prior elections — from seizing ballots to making sweeping claims of noncitizens on the voter rolls — that mimic actions from the Trump administration’s hunt for 2020 voter fraud. In Arizona’s Maricopa County, the official responsible for voter registration referred for prosecution more than 200 people suspected of being registered to vote as noncitizens, based on a database that’s turned up false positives elsewhere. The clerk in Macomb County, Michigan, touted noncitizen voters he claimed to have uncovered using jury records as he runs for secretary of state. And in California, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — a Republican candidate for governor — last month seized 650,000 ballots from the state’s 2025 special election to investigate a processing discrepancy alleged by conservative activists. They’re all facing pushback from state authorities who raised concerns that the probes don’t follow the law or go beyond the local officials’ expertise. As allies of President Donald Trump have seized on the new fraud claims, state officials have also said the allegations overstate t