LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors sent letters to election officials across California on Friday demanding that they set aside and verify ballots that the Justice Department alleges could belong to noncitizens, giving counties 48 hours to respond.
The directives went out to at least 18 counties, according to the Los Angeles County registrar’s office, CBS News and The Guardian reported. The letters order local registrars to produce sensitive voter records — including Social Security numbers, identification information, and voter registration files — and sequester any ballots where citizenship remains unverified.
“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said, according to CBS News.
Escalating Legal Battle
The letters marked a sharp escalation in a nationwide clash between the Trump administration and state election authorities. Studies show that voting by noncitizens in U.S. elections is exceedingly rare and has not altered election results, CBS News reported.
Earlier in October, the federal government sued the California secretary of state and Los Angeles County, seeking to stop them from tallying ballots from approximately 20,000 individuals federal officials labeled as likely noncitizens. A district court hearing on that lawsuit is scheduled for Tuesday. However, the administration bypassed that timeline Friday by urging the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene and issue a ruling by Saturday before the district judge could rule, according to court filings cited by CBS News and Slate.
State and county officials have firmly resisted the federal push. California lawyers argued in court documents that the Justice Department’s data is unreliable and that complying with the demands would risk stripping legal citizens of their voting rights while delaying official midterm vote certification.
A review of a 200-person sample from the federal list conducted by Los Angeles County found that more than half were not registered to vote at all, and many were born in the United States, according to Slate.
Counties Pressured as Voting Continues
In San Bernardino County alone, the Justice Department cited a roster of 1,133 registered individuals it suspects of being noncitizens, arguing that receiving voter identification records quickly would help resolve each case, CBS News reported.
Mail voting is already well underway in California, where all 23 million registered voters were sent ballots earlier in the month. More than 330,000 mail-in ballots have already been processed and counted, state lawyers reported in court records.
The weekend letters followed a series of federal arrests earlier in the week in which 28 people from the federal government’s 20,000-person list were charged with unlawfully registering to vote, CBS News and The Guardian reported. Some defendants also face charges of submitting unlawful ballots or falsifying naturalization documents, allegations that could carry years in prison.
Broader Push Against State Rolls
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, led by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, has launched 31 lawsuits seeking unredacted state voter rolls, acknowledging plans to screen them against Department of Homeland Security databases. Federal judges have ruled against the Justice Department in 26 of those cases without granting the agency a single victory, according to CBS News and Slate.
Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California strongly condemned the federal action on Friday. He accused the administration of attempting to disrupt the election without presenting proof of widespread fraud, adding that federal agencies lack the legal authority to meddle in state election operations.
Whether the 9th Circuit will take up the administration’s emergency appeal or leave the case with the federal district judge ahead of Tuesday’s hearing remains to be seen as the Saturday deadline arrives.
