R. Trent McCotter gave California officials 48 hours to review an alleged noncitizen voter list in the Trump DOJ election administration dispute, warning that the Justice Department would seek legal action if they did not comply. The letters, addressed to Shirley Weber and Dean Logan, set out how listed ballots should be handled before the November 3 election.
McCotter wrote that “Allowing noncitizens to vote cancels citizen votes.” Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels said, “The department will take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal law.”
Shirley Weber and Dean Logan
The letters were sent on October 14 and reviewed by. The Justice Department provided Los Angeles County officials with a password-protected thumb drive containing names of people the federal government believes are likely noncitizens and were sent mail-in ballots from California.
The instructions were specific. California was told to refuse to send ballots to people on the list until their citizenship status has been confirmed. Ballots that had already been mailed back were to be segregated, and ballots already returned were not to be tabulated until citizenship had been determined.
Justice Department July letters
The October demand followed a broader campaign. In July, the Justice Department sent letters to chief election officials in all 50 states warning they could face criminal prosecution if they knowingly allowed noncitizens to remain on their voter rolls or cast ballots.
The Civil Rights Division has also demanded nonpublic voter data from nearly all states, and the Justice Department has sued 30 Democratic- and Republican-led states that refused to hand over their rolls. It has lost 26 of those cases without winning one.
California voter roll dispute
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that voting by non-US citizens is widespread, but multiple studies have found it is rare. reported in September that states may have added more than 30,000 noncitizens to their voter rolls since 2000 because of software glitches and clerical errors, though it was unclear how many had cast a ballot.
also reported last month that the Department of Homeland Security was using a commercial data broker to find sensitive voter information not included in publicly available rolls. Officials and experts warned that the effort could lead to citizens being falsely flagged as illegal voters and potentially detained.
California and Los Angeles County now face a short clock. McCotter said the federal government will have no choice but to seek emergency relief if state and county officials do not follow its instructions, leaving election administrators to decide whether to change ballot handling before the deadline expires.
