Justice Department Threatens California with Legal Action Over Noncitizen Voter Rolls

The U.S. Department of Justice has threatened California with legal action, alleging that noncitizens may have received mail ballots for the upcoming midterm elections. A letter sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber from the acting deputy U.S. attorney general stated that officials in Los Angeles County have been provided with a thumb drive containing a list of individuals believed to be noncitizens who were sent ballots for the Nov. 8 election. California mails ballots to all registered voters.

The department demanded that the state determine within 48 hours whether any citizens are included on the provided list. For individuals whose citizenship cannot be independently verified, the state is instructed to direct local election officials to segregate their mail-in ballots and not provide ballots to those who have not yet received them. The letter warned that legal action, including seeking emergency relief, may follow if the state does not meet the deadline.

Weber's office stated late Wednesday that the demand was made just three weeks before Election Day. The office also noted that in the summer, the Department of Homeland Security claimed California had 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls but refused to provide the methodology or data sources when asked. Weber criticized the Justice Department's request as demanding California "blindly trust this administration without any evidence or legal authority to justify its request," asserting that California law requires only U.S. citizens to register to vote and that ineligible individuals are removed from voter rolls.

A similar letter was sent to the registrar’s office in Los Angeles County. Registrar Dean Logan confirmed receipt of a thumb drive and a password to access the list of alleged noncitizens. He stated that his office has not yet accessed the files, considering the thumb drive an insecure device. Logan emphasized that actions to remove a voter's eligibility must be based on verifiable information, not unconfirmed data matching, and that his office is working with the secretary of state and attorney general's offices to determine how to proceed.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta denounced the letter, calling it another instance of President Donald Trump spreading "absolutely false conspiracy theories that there is widespread voter fraud when there is not." He stated that the state would not engage in such theories.

The Trump administration has prioritized identifying noncitizen voters, though the problem is considered exceptionally rare. The Justice Department has charged approximately 90 individuals this year for election misconduct, including about 50 alleged noncitizen voters. In July, the administration alleged that as many as 250,000 noncitizens were registered in California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, claims that election officials, including Weber, have met with skepticism. Weber previously stated she had "serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims" as her office had not shared statewide voter registration lists with federal agencies.

In a similar situation in Nevada, after the federal government identified alleged noncitizen voters, the number of actual registered noncitizens turned out to be zero.

The Justice Department has sought detailed voter information from states, including dates of birth, addresses, driver's license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers, for its noncitizen voter identification project. While some Republican-led states have provided this data, it has been run through a Homeland Security database criticized for inaccurately flagging U.S. citizens. The Justice Department has filed lawsuits against 30 states and the District of Columbia for this information but has lost these cases in court. California was among the states that successfully sued, arguing that releasing the data would violate state privacy laws.

Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, called the 48-hour deadline to vet flagged voters "completely unreasonable," noting that investigating such claims requires time to review registration history, voting records, and contact voters. She also questioned how the federal government compiled its list without access to the state's detailed voter information and stated that in her decades of experience, she has "never seen anything that would make me believe that our voter records are filled with fraudulent voters."