WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against California on Thursday, asking a federal judge to bar election officials from counting mail-in ballots from roughly 20,000 individuals the agency contends are noncitizens.
The legal action in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California arrived just three weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. It follows a 48-hour ultimatum that federal officials issued Tuesday demanding that local authorities review records provided on a thumb drive and sequester ballots returned by flagged voters.
Dispute Over Delivery and Data
According to court filings, the Trump administration asserted that it sought to collaborate with state authorities to identify ineligible voters, but argued California election leaders made no serious attempt to resolve the issue. Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter, joined in the action by Attorney General Todd Blanche and federal prosecutor Bill Essayli, argued the federal government has an obligation under the supremacy clause to ensure only U.S. citizens vote in federal contests.
“California election officials were given an opportunity to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls and to sequester ballots returned from suspected ineligible voters. They refused,” Essayli said, as reported by the New York Post.
California leaders vigorously rejected the claims and questioned the administration’s methods. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber stated that the Justice Department never delivered the voter list to her office, calling the move “an emergency of the DOJ’s creation.” In a statement reported by ABC News, Weber added, “The USDOJ’s relentless efforts to unlawfully gain access to states’ protected voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections.”
In Los Angeles County, Registrar-Recorder and County Clerk Dean Logan confirmed receiving the federal letter along with a password-protected USB flash drive accompanied by a handwritten note containing a password. Logan said election workers would not plug the device into county systems because it violates digital security rules.
“We do not consider the device a secure medium,” Logan said in a statement quoted by ABC News, noting that the agency failed to describe the underlying methodology used to gather the names.
Legal Hurdles and Rebuttals
California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the filing, describing it as an attempt to depress voter turnout. “Courts have made clear the federal government has no role in running state elections,” Newsom said in a statement reported by Al Jazeera English. “We will defend free and fair elections in the Golden State and call out every authoritarian attempt to undermine our democracy.”
Legal scholars and state administrators noted that federal law limits major changes to voter lists immediately before an election. Richard Hasen, an election law specialist at UCLA, wrote on his blog that the National Voter Registration Act prohibits systematic voter purges within 90 days of an election, warning that rushed attempts to verify citizenship risk improperly disenfranchising eligible voters, The Guardian reported.
Questions about the reliability of federal noncitizen voter lists have surfaced in other states as well. When the Department of Homeland Security previously flagged 185 registered voters as suspected noncitizens to Nevada officials, a subsequent state inquiry determined every single individual was a lawful citizen, according to ABC News and The Guardian.
The federal government is asking the district court to require California to set aside ballots from the identified individuals until their citizenship can be independently confirmed. It remains unknown how quickly the federal court will rule on the Justice Department’s injunction request.
