The Justice Department filed a groundbreaking lawsuit Thursday asking a judge to forbid California from counting ballots of roughly 20,000 people the feds believe to be noncitizens, unless the state takes steps to verify they are, in fact, valid voters.
Trump administration officials said they provided the list of names to election officials in California this week and gave them a 48-hour deadline to vet the list.
When nothing was done, the feds turned to the courts to try to block the state from letting the ballots be tabulated.
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California uses a vote-by-mail system that sends ballots to the address associated with every registered voter. The Justice Department said that means live ballots were already sent to the suspected noncitizens.
“The law is clear, aliens in the United States cannot vote in federal elections,” said acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. “What our complaint alleges is that California is facilitating unlawful voting by knowingly allowing noncitizens to vote. This needs to stop.”
“The United States thus sues California to ensure that only American citizens’ ballots are counted in the ongoing federal election,” Andrew Darlington, a DOJ lawyer, said in the complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, in a letter to the Justice Department this week responding to the list, called the demand to refuse to count already mailed ballots “unprecedented” and the timeline for action was impossible.
“This is an emergency of the DOJ’s creation,” she wrote. “California’s election administration will continue to be governed by applicable federal and state law, not by unsubstantiated claims and outrageous demands.”
She also questioned the methodology the government uses to identify noncitizens, calling it unreliable.
Andrew Darlington, the DOJ lawyer who signed the complaint, detailed the process used.
He said Homeland Security came up with the list of “nearly” 20,000 names by taking a list of California voters, running it through third-party databases to try to match those names to identities, then checking them in government files.
Mr. Darlington, in the complaint, detailed the process used.
He said Homeland Security came up with the list of “nearly” 20,000 names by taking a list of California voters, running it through third-party databases to try to match those names to identities, then checking them in government files.
DHS’ citizenship agency looks for people who have immigration files associated with them, then looks for evidence that they have achieved citizenship. Those who haven’t are deemed good candidates to be noncitizens.
That list was then forwarded to Homeland Security Investigations, DHS’ detective force, which reviewed it and came up with the final list.
That was given to California on Tuesday.
“The state knows that noncitizens might be registered to vote, and it knows the names of such individuals. But it still intends to count their vote without verifying the voter’s citizenship,” Mr. Darlington wrote in the lawsuit.
It comes less than three weeks before Election Day, when seats in Congress are up for grabs, as are state offices in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the feds have no legal leverage because it’s the states that are charged under the Constitution with vetting voters’ credentials.
He called the demand to block 20,000 ballots “a totally unprecedented request that should scare the hell out of every American.”
“This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,” he said.
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from casting ballots in elections for national office. But a federal judge in Florida recently called that law into question, saying that because states set voter qualifications, Congress lacks power to criminalize who is and who isn’t eligible.
That decision has been appealed.
California has in the past insisted it doesn’t have a problem of noncitizen voting.
“The state knows that noncitizens might be registered to vote, and it knows the names of such individuals. But it still intends to count their vote without verifying the voter’s citizenship,” Mr. Darlington wrote.
The lawsuit comes less than three weeks before Election Day, when seats in Congress are up for grabs, as are state offices in California.
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from casting ballots in elections for national office.
California has in the past insisted it doesn’t have a problem of noncitizen voting.
When The Washington Times in 2024 sought records of noncitizen voters booted from the rolls, the California secretary of state’s office reported that it didn’t “have any data to report on instances of noncitizens voting or being incorrectly registered and removed from the voting rolls.”
Local jurisdictions, though, have acknowledged the issue.
Orange County last year notified the federal government it removed 17 people from its voter rolls after realizing they weren’t citizens. The county said it investigated after receiving complaints from noncitizens that they received ballots in the mail under California’s all-mail election system.
Earlier this year, DHS said it identified 190,000 names of potential noncitizens in California — a much higher number than the 20,000 cited on the list provided to the state this week.
Ms. Weber, in her letter, said DHS never defended that higher number despite her prodding.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, in a statement Thursday, called his department’s analysis “preliminary,” and said the process was “ongoing.” Still, he called the number of names flagged “significant.”
“This is completely unacceptable — as even one noncitizen vote cancels out the ballot of an American citizen and undermines our elections,” he said.
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