Politics
DOJ Gives California Counties 48 Hours to Isolate Ballots It Suspects Were Cast by Noncitizens
Federal prosecutors are seeking voter information and asking county officials to set aside ballots flagged for citizenship checks, with at least four counties confirming they received demands. The effort comes amid broader federal actions targeting alleged noncitizen voting, which remains rare, according to cited reporting.
The U.S. Department of Justice has given California county election officials 48 hours to provide information about ballots it suspects were cast by noncitizens and to set aside any ballots whose voters’ citizenship cannot be verified.
Letters issued Friday went to as many as 18 counties, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle. Election officials in Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Los Angeles and Merced counties confirmed receiving them.
The demands seek identifying information tied to flagged ballots, including Social Security numbers, identification details and copies of voter registration paperwork. Letters sent by U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian to Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder Kristin B. Connelly and Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Matt Morales warned of possible legal action if officials did not sequester the ballots, the Chronicle reported.
The requests raise concerns about the handling of sensitive voter data and the potential effect of setting aside ballots before allegations are substantiated. The information provided about the flagged voters and the evidence behind the federal suspicions was not detailed in the available reporting.
The letters follow a federal sweep earlier in the week that led to 28 people being charged with illegally registering to vote, out of a list of 20,000 people, according to the Chronicle. The charges concern alleged illegal registration; the figures do not establish that those people cast ballots.
The Trump administration has also sued Los Angeles County and the California secretary of state in an effort to stop the counting of votes attributed to about 20,000 alleged noncitizens. A hearing in that case was scheduled for Tuesday. The Chronicle reported that noncitizen voting is statistically extremely rare.
The federal demands are part of a wider DOJ effort to obtain unredacted state voter rolls. The department has filed 31 lawsuits seeking those records this year; 26 cases had been decided at the time of the report, and the DOJ had lost each of them.