The U.S. Department of Justice has given California election officials until Thursday to review a federal list of people the agency says may be undocumented and registered to vote, threatening to seek emergency court action if the state does not comply. In letters sent Tuesday to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the department had provided a thumb drive containing the names. The 48-hour deadline falls during the run-up to the November midterm elections. McCotter’s letters also asked officials to separate and not count already-returned ballots associated with people on the list whose citizenship could not be verified. He warned that if California could not put the process in place by Thursday, the federal government would have “no choice” but to seek emergency relief. The Justice Department’s claim that the list identifies noncitizens does not establish that the people named are ineligible voters. Weber’s and Logan’s offices had not responded to requests for comment as of Wednesday. The demand puts federal authorities and state and county election administrators in a time-sensitive dispute over voter-roll review and ballot handling ahead of a major election. Any decision to delay or set aside ballots could affect voters whose eligibility has not been independently confirmed.