DOJ sues California to block mail-in ballots from voters it calls likely noncitizens, weeks before midterms

The Justice Department sued California on Thursday in federal court, seeking to prevent the state from tabulating mail-in ballots from voters it identified as likely noncitizens. The lawsuit comes weeks before the November 3 midterm elections.

Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent a 48-hour deadline letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Tuesday, threatening further action if the state did not review lists of allegedly ineligible voters. The DOJ said the list contained more than 20,000 names of likely noncitizens. Weber said the DOJ did not send the list of voters to her office.

A thumb drive and a handwritten password

The DOJ provided a thumb drive containing the questioned names to Los Angeles County officials, who declined to access it, citing security concerns. The county received a thumb drive with the letter and a handwritten note with what appeared to be a password, but officials said they did not consider the device a secure medium. Los Angeles County said the threat was issued 21 days before midterm elections. The DOJ did not provide details on how it came up with the names on the list.

State officials call it an emergency of the DOJ’s making

Weber said California has strong state law requirements that only U.S. citizens can register to vote and that non-eligible registrants are removed from voter rolls. She said the DOJ’s efforts to gain access to state voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in elections. “This is an emergency of the DOJ’s creation,” Weber said. California Governor Gavin Newsom rebuked the DOJ lawsuit, calling it a sad, desperate attempt to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day. Weber’s office said that in July, President Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullen made unsubstantiated claims that California had 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls. Weber’s office said California immediately requested written information about DHS/SAVE methodology and data sources, but they refused and provided California with nothing.

Legal scholars see a publicity stunt barred by federal law

Richard Hasen, an election law scholar at UCLA, described the DOJ’s efforts as a nice publicity stunt. Hasen said the National Voter Registration Act bars systematic purges of ineligible voters in the 90-day period before an election. A federal judge in Florida ruled this month that a federal law criminalizing voting by noncitizens was unconstitutional, finding only states have authority to set voter qualifications. Another federal judge ruled this month that the DOJ unlawfully sought state voter rolls for cross-checking against the SAVE immigration database. DHS refused to share methodology with Nevada election officials and later turned over 185 names of people it strongly believed were noncitizens; Nevada officials found every one was a citizen. In September, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Trump administration effort to restrict mail-in ballots for the November 3 elections.

Trump has repeatedly made the false claim that large numbers of noncitizens are casting ballots in Democratic-led states including California. State officials including in California have said the number of noncitizen voters is negligible and does not warrant intervention weeks before elections. The DOJ has at least 45 cases pending nationwide where the accused could raise the same objection as in the Florida ruling.