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← All fact checksMorning run · November 8, 2026 · #4 by reach
PoliticsStatistic

Were there 20 million new voter registrations in 37 states without proof of citizenship?

Were there 20 million new voter registrations between 2022 and 2024 in 37 states that don't require proof of citizenship, as Benny Johnson and others claim after the midterms?

Misleading

The 20 million figure is accurate as a registration count, but it is not 20 million unverified new voters.

The number is real but its meaning is not. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission's 2024 survey counted 26,185,294 new valid registrations nationwide between 2022 and 2024, and about 20.3 million of them fell in the 37 states without documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements. That is routine registration churn against 211 million active registered voters — not evidence of unverified voters deciding elections.

+5Sources ↓Original post ↗
Likely genuine
The post as it circulated, labelled by our media check.Video · 0:14 · 1280×720

Claims

✓ 2 true

There were about 20 million new voter registrations between 2022 and 2024 in 37 states without documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements.234

“There were 20 Million new voter registrations between 2022 and 2024 in 37 states without proof of citizenship requirements”

✓ Likely trueCentral claimHigh confidence

The federal data supports the count. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission's 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey reports 103.5 million registration transactions between the close of registration for the 2022 general election and the close of registration for 2024, of which 26,185,294 were classified as new and valid registrations nationwide. A compilation of the state tables puts the 37 states without documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements at 20,283,937, with California at 4,308,269, Texas at 2,900,357 and North Carolina at 1,410,905 — the same state-level figures repeated in conservative coverage. The figure is broadly accurate as a count of registration records. The decisive source is the EAC's own data brief, an official federal dataset, not a partisan outlet. PJ Media (source 3) and an X compilation (source 4) restate the same numbers but trace back to that single federal origin, so they are not independent confirmations. The caveat a reader should weigh is definitional: "new registrations" means records entered into the voter rolls, not people whose citizenship was verified.

Still open: The 37-state total is a derived compilation from the state tables, not a figure the EAC publishes as a single line; small rounding or classification differences could shift it slightly.

Republicans were unable to get the SAVE America Act passed.567

“Republicans’ inability to get the SAVE America Act passed”

✓ TrueHigh confidence

This is straightforwardly correct. The House passed the SAVE America Act in February 2026 on a 218-213 vote, but the Senate never passed it. Majority Leader John Thune said the votes were not there to overcome the filibuster, and two attempts to attach the bill to reconciliation packages failed — including a 48-50 vote in April 2026 and a further failed bid in June 2026. Republican senators were still pressing for it as the Senate left for summer recess in August 2026. The Hill (source 5), a center-rated outlet, and Fox News (source 6) agree on the basic sequence, and Deseret News (source 7) reports a mid-March floor takeover attempt that ended without a vote on the bill itself. Two sources from different parts of the political spectrum agreeing on the procedural facts makes this a high-confidence finding. What the post does not say is that the obstacle was not simply Democratic opposition: some Republicans were unwilling to change filibuster rules, as The Hill reports.

Implication: these 20 million registrations are an unverified, election-threatening mass that could cost the country.128

“Republicans’ inability to get the SAVE America Act passed was an unforgivable betrayal that could cost us the country Insane.”

~ MisleadingHigh confidence

The numbers are real; the conclusion drawn from them is not supported. Registration without documentary proof of citizenship is the norm under the National Voter Registration Act in most states, which rely on a signed attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury plus DMV and SAVE-program database cross-checks. Non-citizen registration and voting are already illegal. The EAVS figures describe routine churn: more than half of all registration transactions were updates to existing records and about a quarter were new and valid, while 21.3 million records were removed from the rolls in the same window. Twenty million new registrations over two years against 211 million active registered voters is a normal flow, not an anomaly. The post presents a raw count as if it demonstrated that non-citizens registered at scale, which the data do not show. The decisive evidence is the EAC's own breakdown of transaction types (sources 1 and 2) combined with Ballotpedia's state-by-state summary of attestation versus documentary requirements (source 8).

Still open: The post does not specify how many of the 20 million registrations belong to people who were already registered or who have since been removed, so the net effect on the rolls is not stated.

Republicans' failure on the SAVE America Act was 'an unforgivable betrayal.'

“Republicans’ inability to get the SAVE America Act passed was an unforgivable betrayal”

– OpinionHigh confidence

This is a political judgement about blame and consequences, not a checkable factual statement. Whether a legislative failure amounts to a "betrayal" depends on what a person expected, whom they hold responsible and how they weigh the stakes — none of which can be verified against a document or dataset. The post is entitled to that view. What a reader should weigh is that the factual premises around it are mixed: the registration count is broadly accurate (LIKELY_TRUE), the Senate outcome is accurate (TRUE), but the inference that the country's elections are at risk is not established by the evidence (MISLEADING). An opinion built on a misleading premise travels further than either part alone.

What was posted

X

Benny Johnson posted a 14-second animated data graphic on X showing a U.S. map with dots representing new voter registrations, a running counter and a ranked list of states. The caption asserts that 20 million new registrations occurred in 37 states without proof-of-citizenship requirements between 2022 and 2024, blames Republicans for failing to pass the SAVE America Act, and calls that failure an "unforgivable betrayal." The graphic cites the EAC's 2024 EAVS Report as its source.

“There were 20 Million new voter registrations between 2022 and 2024 in 37 states without proof of citizenship requirements Republicans’ inability to get the SAVE America Act passed was an unforgivable betrayal that could cost us the country Insane.”

Posted on X shortly after the 3 November 2026 midterms. The same animated map and figures had been circulating on X since around 5 November 2026 from accounts including @Shilohmarx and @WallStreetApes; this post is one amplification of that wave.

Who posted it

X
@bennyjohnson
View the account on X ↗

Account check

Looks like a genuine account14%
Likelihood of automation7%

Estimates from public signals — account age, posting pattern, audience — not a judgement of the person behind the account, and separate from whether this post is true.

What stood out

  • @bennyjohnson is the long-running, personally operated account of Benny Johnson, a real conservative commentator/podcaster (The Benny Show, ex-BuzzFeed, TheBlaze, Breitbart, IJR, TPUSA, Newsmax) — clearly a human-run account, not a sockpuppet or bot.
  • Account has a heavy, well-documented record of false claims: multiple PolitiFact 'False'/'Pants on Fire' rulings (e.g., Jan 2026 Venice, CA voter-fraud claim; 2024 'Biden rushed to hospital'; 2024 Hochul funeral denial; 2023 Pelosi Jan. 6 'planned' tapes).
  • AFP Fact Check debunked his January 2026 '26 voters registered at an empty lot' California fraud video, and earlier out-of-context Sheinbaum clip (June 2025) that reached the Oval Office.
  • August 2025 NYT investigation found his White House press-briefing claims (murders on his block, house 'burned to the ground' in arson) contradicted by police and fire records; he responded by attacking the paper.
  • Fired from BuzzFeed in 2014 after 41 confirmed instances of plagiarism; later suspended at IJR over a false Obama story and a parody-Antifa sourced piece.
  • Named among paid contributors in the 2024 DOJ Tenet Media indictment (alleged covert RT funding); he claims he was deceived, and reporting/indictment did not allege contributor knowledge.
  • Ongoing defamation suit (Foody v. Johnson, N.D. Ill., filed Oct 2026) over his labeling of peaceful ICE protesters as 'left-wing terrorists'.
  • DisinfoWatch (Aug 2026) documented him amplifying false claims about Alberta's referendum and Canadian constitutional law.
  • Despite this, he is a high-reach, real-name media figure (~4M+ X followers) with mainstream access (White House 'new media' seat), so behaviour is loud/partisan rather than automated.
  • Assessment: genuine person/organisation account (high 'realness') but a very unreliable information source — low authenticity score, low bot probability.
Signals (11)+
Account type
Real person / media personality
Approx x followers
4,100,000+ (per Oct 2025 court filing)
Platform verification
Historically verified on X (metadata field blank/false here)
Posting cadence
Very high volume; multiple videos/podcast clips daily across X, YouTube, Facebook, Rumble
Follower ratio
Unknown (metadata missing)
Notable news coverage
NYT, Mediaite, Times of India, DisinfoWatch, New Republic, AFP, PolitiFact
Fact check hits
Multiple PolitiFact False ratings; AFP, Politifact, NewsGuard debunks
Plagiarism history
41 confirmed instances at BuzzFeed (2014); further allegations at IJR
Foreign influence allegation
Named in 2024 DOJ Tenet Media/RT indictment; no contributor knowledge alleged
Legal exposure
Defamation suit filed Oct 2026 (Foody v. Johnson)
Coordinated inauthentic behaviour
No evidence of bot/coordinated network operation by the account itself

Account checked November 8, 2026, 02:56 UTC

The media

Video
Likely genuinePresented as real footage

✓ What is genuine

The underlying data graphic is a genuine animated visualisation built on the EAC's published 2024 EAVS Report, not manipulated footage. The claim rests on a statistic that can be checked against that federal report regardless of the graphic.

The tells

  • ●●● Strong signal The graphic carries an explicit source line citing the EAC's 2024 EAVS Report and a methodology note, which is what a genuine data visualisation would include.our visual review
  • ●●○ Supporting signal The cumulative counter ends around 19.1 million for the years shown, close to the roughly 20.3 million two-year total being quoted — the numbers track the published federal data.our visual review
  • ●●○ Supporting signal Nothing in the 14-second clip depicts a physical scene that could be staged or faked; it is an animation, not footage of an event.our visual review

Synthetic-media detector

Detector not consulted

The media is incidental to the claim; the detector was not needed.

How we checked the media

  • Reviewed the 14-second animated data graphic visually: map with dots, running counter and ranked state list.
  • Checked that the graphic's text and numbers are legible and internally consistent.
  • Compared the figures shown in the graphic with the EAC's published 2024 EAVS data.

Sources

8 sources reviewed

Further reading

  • 1U.S. Election Assistance Commission The official EAC release that establishes the national registration totals and the active registered voter count.
  • 2U.S. Election Assistance Commission The EAVS data brief with the specific transaction and removal figures that put the 20 million in context.
  • 5The Hill Explains why the SAVE America Act stalled, including the filibuster and Republican divisions.
  • 8Ballotpedia Shows which states require documentary proof of citizenship versus a signed attestation.

The full story

The foundation of this post is a genuine government dataset. On 30 June 2025 the U.S. Election Assistance Commission released its 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey, which counted 103.5 million voter registration transactions between the close of registration for the 2022 general election and the close of registration for 2024. Of those, 26,185,294 were new and valid registrations. A compilation of the state tables put about 20.3 million of them in the 37 states that do not require documentary proof of citizenship at registration, with California, Texas and North Carolina the largest contributors.

Those numbers are accurate as counts of registration records. What they are not is a count of unverified new voters. The EAC reports that more than half of all transactions were updates to existing records and about a quarter were new and valid, and that 21.3 million records were removed from the rolls in the same period. Against 211 million active registered voters, 20 million registrations over two years is ordinary churn. Most states rely on a signed attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury — the NVRA norm — with DMV and SAVE-program cross-checks, and non-citizen registration and voting are already crimes.

The post's second factual element is also correct: the SAVE America Act passed the House in February 2026 but never passed the Senate. Majority Leader John Thune said the votes were not there to break a filibuster, and two attempts to attach it to reconciliation packages failed. What the post does with that record — calling it "an unforgivable betrayal that could cost us the country" — is opinion. The post lands days after Republicans lost at least seven Senate seats in the 3 November 2026 midterms, a moment when explanations for electoral defeat are contested.

Kernel of truth

The EAC's 2024 survey really does record about 20.3 million new valid registrations in the 37 states without documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements, and the Senate really did fail to pass the SAVE America Act.

Timeline

  1. June 30, 2025

    The U.S. Election Assistance Commission releases its 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey, reporting 103.5 million registration transactions and 26,185,294 new valid registrations nationwide. 1U.S. Election Assistance Commission

  2. February 2026

    The House passes the SAVE America Act on a 218-213 vote. 5The Hill

  3. March 2026

    A Senate floor takeover attempt on the SAVE America Act ends without a vote on the bill itself. 7Deseret News

  4. April 2026

    An attempt to attach the SAVE America Act to a reconciliation package fails on a 48-50 vote. 6Fox News

  5. June 2026

    A further attempt to attach the SAVE America Act to a reconciliation package fails. 6Fox News

  6. November 3, 2026

    Republicans lose at least seven Senate seats in the midterm elections.

  7. November 5, 2026

    The voter-registration figures and animated map begin circulating on X from accounts including @Shilohmarx and @WallStreetApes. 4X

How it was framed

Misleading contentFalse context

The post uses genuine federal data and a real Senate outcome but frames a routine registration count as an unverified, election-threatening mass, implying a conclusion the evidence does not support. The same numbers are lifted from their context — transaction types, roll removals, attestation rules — and presented as proof of an election-security crisis.

  • Emotional language. "an unforgivable betrayal that could cost us the country Insane."
  • Ongoing-threat framing. "could cost us the country" presents the registration figures as an active, unresolved danger.
  • “Visual proof”. The animated map with dots and a running counter gives the 20 million figure the appearance of demonstrated, incremental evidence.
  • Missing context. The caption does not mention that more than half of registration transactions were updates, that 21.3 million records were removed, or that most states use a signed attestation under penalty of perjury.
  • Borrowed authority. The graphic's source line cites the EAC's 2024 EAVS Report, borrowing the authority of a federal dataset for a conclusion the dataset does not support.

Posted on X by Benny Johnson, an account with a large political following, shortly after the 3 November 2026 midterms. The same figures and animated map had been circulating on X since around 5 November 2026 from accounts including @Shilohmarx and @WallStreetApes; this post is one amplification of that wave.

Bias

NoneSlightModerateStrong

Leans partisan right / election-integrity alarmism. The post frames routine federal registration statistics as an existential threat ('Insane', 'could cost us the country') and blames Republican senators for a 'betrayal', part of a wider post-midterm push blaming the Senate GOP for failing to pass the SAVE America Act after Republican losses in the November 2026 midterms.

Bias describes how the post frames its message — the slant of the language, selection and emphasis — and is judged separately from whether the claim is true. A true claim can still be framed with a strong slant.

How we checked

1 min 23 s
  1. 1

    Searched for the 20 million registration claim and the 37-state breakdown to find the underlying data and any existing fact checks.

  2. 2

    Searched for the EAC's 2024 EAVS report to confirm the registration transaction and new valid registration totals.

  3. 3

    Searched for fact checks and analysis of the 20 million figure and its framing.

  4. 4

    Searched for the Senate votes on the SAVE America Act to confirm the legislative record.

  5. 5

    Reviewed the 14-second animated graphic visually for legibility, internal consistency and source citations, and compared its figures with the EAC data.

✓ Claim checked✓ Media checked✓ Sources checked

Why 72% confidence

Moderate

The confidence band is MODERATE rather than HIGH because the 37-state total is a derived compilation rather than a single official line, and because several sources restating the figure trace to one viral compilation rather than independent reporting. The underlying EAC data are strong and the Senate record is confirmed across outlets of different leanings, which is why the central count is rated LIKELY_TRUE rather than unverified. The misleading framing finding rests on the EAC's own breakdown of transaction types, which is official and clear.

Limits. We did not open the full EAVS state tables line by line, so the 20.3 million total is checked against compilation figures and the EAC's summary rather than recomputed from raw data. We could not determine how many of the new registrations belong to people who were already registered or who were later removed, and we did not run an automated media detector on the animated graphic.

What we don’t know

  • How many of the 20.3 million new valid registrations were first-time voters rather than people re-registering after a move or a roll purge.
  • Whether any of the registrations were later removed as ineligible, and how many.
  • Who created the original animated map and when, before it began circulating on X around 5 November 2026.
  • Whether the post's author checked the EAC's transaction breakdown before framing the figures as an election threat.

Spot it yourself

Spot the fake

Looks suspicious, isn’t proof

  • The account is openly partisan and the tone is alarmist — reasons to check carefully, but not evidence the numbers are wrong.
  • The post arrived days after an election loss, which makes motivated framing plausible — but timing alone proves nothing about the data.
  • The animation is slick and fast-moving, which can feel like propaganda — but production quality is not a measure of accuracy.
  • The caption is written in a conversational, repetitive style — typos or informal phrasing are not evidence either way.

The actual evidence

  • The EAC's 2024 EAVS Data Brief directly reports 103,512,313 registration transactions and 26,185,294 new valid registrations nationwide, so the headline figure is traceable to an official source.
  • The EAC's breakdown shows more than half of transactions were updates and 21,298,175 records were removed in the same period — the context that turns a shocking number into routine churn.
  • Ballotpedia's state-by-state summary shows most states require a signed attestation rather than documents, meaning the "without proof of citizenship" framing describes the legal norm, not a loophole.
  • The Hill and Fox News, from different parts of the political spectrum, agree the Senate never passed the SAVE America Act — confirming the post's procedural claim.
  1. 1

    Find the primary dataset behind the number

    Search for the report named in the graphic — here, the EAC's 2024 EAVS Report — and read the summary or data brief. Check whether the figure in the post appears there and how the agency defines it.

  2. 2

    Ask what the number counts

    Look for a definition. "New registrations" can mean records entered, not people verified; "transactions" can include address changes. The label matters more than the total.

  3. 3

    Put the number against a denominator

    Find the total registered voters or eligible population. Twenty million sounds enormous until it is compared with 211 million active registered voters over two years.

  4. 4

    Check whether the claim describes a norm or an exception

    Look up how registration actually works in the states named. If most states use a signed attestation under penalty of perjury, then "without proof of citizenship" describes the standard system, not a breakdown.

  5. 5

    Separate the checkable claim from the conclusion

    Highlight the factual sentences and the judgement sentences in the post. Verify the first; treat the second as opinion, however strongly worded.

Takeaway

A real statistic can be used to support a false conclusion. When a number is accurate but the alarm around it is not, the work is in checking definitions and denominators — not in disputing the figure itself.

Questions people ask

Is it true that there were 20 million new voter registrations between 2022 and 2024?+

Broadly, yes. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission's 2024 survey counted 26,185,294 new valid registrations nationwide between the 2022 and 2024 general elections. A compilation of the state tables puts about 20.3 million of them in the 37 states without documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements. The figure is accurate as a count of registration records, not of verified new voters.

Does this mean 20 million unverified people registered to vote?+

No. "New valid registrations" counts records entered on the rolls, not people whose citizenship was unverified. Most states require a signed attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury, and non-citizen registration and voting are already crimes. The EAC data do not show non-citizen registration at scale.

Did the Senate pass the SAVE America Act?+

No. The House passed it in February 2026, but the Senate never did. Majority Leader John Thune said the votes were not there to overcome a filibuster, and two attempts to attach it to reconciliation packages failed in 2026. Some Republicans were unwilling to change Senate rules, according to The Hill.

Why does 20 million sound so much bigger than it is?+

Because it is a raw count without a denominator. The same EAVS data show more than half of all registration transactions were updates to existing records, 21.3 million records were removed from the rolls, and 211 million people were active registered voters. Over two years, 20 million registrations is normal churn rather than an anomaly.

What is the SAVE America Act?+

It is a bill that would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration. It passed the House in February 2026 but stalled in the Senate over a filibuster that supporters could not break. The post's claim that Republicans failed to pass it is accurate; its description of that failure as a "betrayal" is opinion.

Go deeper

EAVS
The Election Administration and Voting Survey, a biennial report by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission collecting voter registration and election administration data from states.
NVRA
The National Voter Registration Act, the federal law that sets how states must offer voter registration, including the use of a standard form with a citizenship attestation.
Attestation
A signed statement that something is true, made under penalty of perjury, as opposed to providing documentary proof.
Filibuster
A Senate procedural tactic that requires a supermajority to end debate, allowing a minority to block a bill from coming to a vote.
Registration transaction
Any change to a voter registration record, including a new registration, an address update or a removal — not only new voters.

People also search for

20 million new voter registrations 2022 2024 37 states without proof of citizenshipEAVS 2024 report new valid registrations fact checkBenny Johnson 20 million voter registrations postSAVE America Act Senate vote failed 2026new voter registrations states without citizenship proof misleading
For educators+
Misleading content versus fabricated content: how accurate data can be arranged to imply a false conclusion.The difference between a numerator and a denominator, and why raw counts need context to mean anything.Primary versus secondary sources: tracing a viral statistic back to the federal dataset behind it.Opinion framed as fact: separating checkable statements from political judgements in a single post.
  • The post's registration number is broadly accurate. Does that make the post trustworthy? Where exactly does the framing go wrong?
  • If you wanted to present the same EAVS data fairly, what context would you include — transaction types, roll removals, attestation rules — and why?
  • How does an animated graphic with a running counter change the way a number feels compared with the same number in a written report?

About this check

Platform
X
Posted by
@bennyjohnson
Posted
November 6, 2026
Age when checked
1–2 days old when checked
Where it spread
United States
Audience
US audience
Language
EN
Status
● Post is live
Verified
November 8, 2026, 02:58 UTC
Published
November 8, 2026, 02:58 UTC

Reach. 41,059 likes on Benny Johnson post (x-syndication, 8 Nov 02:31Z); origin @Shilohmarx 3,555 likes

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