In letters sent Tuesday, Oct. 13, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan that the department had identified people who received vote-by-mail ballots despite allegedly being ineligible to vote in federal elections. The DOJ warned it could seek emergency court relief if officials did not meet its deadline.

McCotter said the department sent Logan a password-protected USB drive containing names. Logan said his office could not access it because doing so would violate its data privacy and security protocols. He also said the letter did not specify how many people were listed or what information the records contained.

“We do not consider the device a secure medium,” Logan said, adding that any action affecting voter eligibility must rely on verifiable information, not unconfirmed data matching. His office is reviewing the DOJ’s demands with Weber and the state attorney general.

California began mailing ballots to voters on Oct. 5, making the federal deadline difficult for the state to meet, according to the letters’ account. The DOJ said it had identified thousands of potential ineligible voters statewide, although the drive sent to Los Angeles County contained a separate list.

The demand intensifies President Donald Trump’s administration’s campaign over claims of noncitizen voter registration in California. In July, the Department of Homeland Security said more than 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote across California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada, including a claimed 190,000 in California. In Nevada, however, all 185 people flagged by federal officials were found to be U.S. citizens.

Matt Barreto, faculty director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, said federal officials lack authority to direct California’s voter-roll decisions, citing the U.S. Constitution, the National Voter Registration Act and state law. The project is already challenging the administration’s efforts to use federal data to identify alleged noncitizens and potentially remove them from voter rolls. Barreto said it planned to seek a preliminary injunction Wednesday in response to the new letters.

The pending lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and a Los Angeles resident, asks a federal court in Washington, D.C., to block federal interference in California’s elections and challenge the administration’s claim that more than 190,000 noncitizens are on the state’s voter rolls.

California officials and lawmakers have enacted new measures this year aimed at protecting the state’s election administration from federal interference. Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat who chairs the Assembly Elections Committee, said the state should not jeopardize eligible voters’ rights to comply with what she called an artificial deadline and an unreliable list.

Weber, speaking at an election roundtable Tuesday, said she expected federal officials to try to intimidate the state. “We’re pretty relentless about making sure that we defend the right of California to run its election and the right of every Californian who’s eligible to vote,” she said.

A DOJ spokesperson said federal law bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections and characterized the department’s request as an effort to enforce that prohibition. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, meanwhile, questioned the credibility of the administration’s claims, pointing to its past statements about election fraud.

Noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections under a 1996 federal law. Some California cities, including San Francisco and Oakland, allow noncitizens to vote in local school board elections, but those local contests are distinct from federal races.