Politics
Justice Department sues California over mail ballots for alleged noncitizen voters
Federal lawyers asked a Los Angeles judge to set aside mail ballots for more than 20,000 people flagged as likely noncitizens until citizenship is verified.
The Justice Department sued California on Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles asking a judge to stop the state from counting mail ballots from more than 20,000 people the government calls likely noncitizens until their citizenship is verified. The complaint names the state Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan. It lands less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms.
Federal lawyers say Homeland Security Investigations compared publicly available California voter rolls with immigration records and flagged more than 20,000 people who were sent vote-by-mail ballots. Under California law every registered voter is mailed a ballot. Noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections.
What the lawsuit asks the court to do
The United States wants an injunction that would force California to set aside mail ballots from people on the federal list and to verify citizenship before those ballots are tabulated. Officials say the state refused a 48-hour demand issued earlier this week to review the names and sequester returned ballots.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said state-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the complaint alleges California is facilitating unlawful voting by knowingly allowing noncitizens to vote. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said California election officials were given a chance to remove suspected noncitizens and sequester their ballots and refused.
California pushes back
Weber said the Justice Department never gave her office the list itself. Los Angeles County confirmed it received a password-protected thumb drive with the names written on a sticky note. In a statement Weber said the department demanded action without providing evidence methodology or legal authority and called the 48-hour window an emergency of the department's own making.
"California has robust state law requirements that only U.S. citizens can register to vote and that any non-eligible registrants are removed from the State's voter rolls," Weber said. She said her office and county election officials remain committed to a fair and smooth Nov. 3 election.
A fight weeks before Election Day
The suit is the latest clash between federal election lawyers and California over voter-roll data. Studies and election administrators have long said proven noncitizen voting is rare relative to the size of the electorate. Counties are already mailing ballots and early voting windows are open so any order to segregate or hold ballots would collide with the calendar.
A federal judge will decide whether California must set the disputed ballots aside before Nov. 3. State lawyers are expected to argue that the federal government has not shown its list is reliable and that yanking ballots this late would risk disenfranchising eligible citizens.
