DOJ Sues California to Block Counting Ballots of 20,000 Voters Flagged as ‘Likely Noncitizens’
The Justice Department filed suit Thursday asking a federal judge to stop California from counting mail ballots cast by more than 20,000 registered voters federal officials identified as likely noncitizens, setting up a court fight less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued California on Thursday, asking a federal court to block the state from counting vote-by-mail ballots cast by more than 20,000 voters federal officials identified as “likely noncitizens” until their citizenship can be verified.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, names the State of California, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, and seeks relief statewide. It came after state election officials declined a Justice Department demand to review the federal list within 48 hours and take steps to keep ineligible ballots from being counted.
The department is not asking the court to throw out ballots already cast. Instead, it wants California to set aside ballots from voters on the federal list and confirm their citizenship before those votes are tabulated, according to the complaint. Because vote-by-mail ballots have already gone out and voting is underway, election law experts say carrying out the request now would pose practical and legal problems.
How the government built its list
According to the complaint, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services compared California voter-registration records against federal immigration databases and sorted possible matches into high-, medium- and low-confidence categories. Only high-confidence matches made the final list after additional checks of immigration, State Department and Social Security records, federal officials said.
Similar federal claims have been wrong before. State officials in Nevada reviewed an earlier federal list of alleged noncitizen voters and determined that the people flagged were, in fact, all lawful U.S. citizens, according to reporting by The New York Times. Election experts say citizenship databases can hold outdated records, name mismatches and clerical errors, and can fail to reflect later naturalizations.
California calls it voter suppression
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office called the lawsuit “unfounded.” In a statement, the governor said it was “a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,” and argued the federal government has no role in how a state runs its elections.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta called the department’s demand “another dangerous attempt to destabilize our safe and secure elections” and accused the Trump administration of promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud. “There is no widespread voter fraud problem. It doesn’t exist. It is a lie. It is a conspiracy theory,” Bonta said. California Sen. Adam Schiff said the state would defend against what he called “meddling and unwarranted intrusion on our constitutional rights.”
No judge has ruled on the request, and for now California is conducting the election under its existing laws. The Justice Department is asking the court to declare California’s actions unlawful and to bar election officials from counting vote-by-mail ballots from voters on its list until their citizenship status is confirmed. Given the Nov. 3 election date, the case is expected to move quickly.
Reporting based on coverage by the Palm Springs Desert Sun.
