LA County Analysis Finds Many on DOJ's Noncitizen Voter List Were Born in U.S.

A preliminary analysis of 200 individuals from the Department of Justice's list of alleged noncitizens registered to vote in California indicates that a significant portion were born in the United States, and a majority have no voting history, according to Los Angeles County officials.

In court papers filed Tuesday, officials from the county registrar's office stated that nearly 40% of the sampled individuals "indicate that they were born in the United States, which is strong evidence of citizenship." Additionally, 71.2% of the records reviewed had no voting history.

The Justice Department had provided California with a list of approximately 20,000 individuals it believes are ineligible to vote. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter acknowledged in a press conference that the list likely contained errors and might include some individuals who are citizens. "We're not perfect and that's why we've asked California to cooperate with us," McCotter stated. "These are the ones where we're kind of the most confident that they are noncitizens."

A spokesperson for the DOJ, Kiersten Pels, accused California of "willful blindness" and stated that federal law does not permit such inaction. "We notified California that noncitizens are likely registered to vote, and we asked the state to independently verify the citizenship of any ballots cast by people on a list that we provided. It refused to do so," Pels said.

However, Monica Flores, an assistant registrar in the Los Angeles County Clerk's Office, wrote in her declaration that the DOJ's proposed process for segregating ballots could risk disenfranchising voters who are validly registered. "The process the DOJ seeks to have the registrar undertake jeopardizes that core right for potentially thousands of voters, not to mention the finalization of election results, confidence in election results, and the ability to allow new elected officials to be instated in their positions," she argued.