The Justice Department sued the State of California over its voter list, alleging that more than 20,000 people who are likely aliens are registered to vote.

“Under California law, every registered voter is mailed a ballot. It is unlawful for aliens to vote in federal elections. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in coordination with federal partners, analyzed publicly available voter-registration records to identify potential indicators that aliens may have registered to vote, cast ballots, or received election-related mail,” the Justice Department stated.

“The Department of Justice has filed a complaint against the State of California alleging that these individuals, who are likely noncitizens, registered to vote and/or voted in a federal election. HSI and its federal partners used multiple data-enrichment and verification methods to assess whether the individuals identified were likely aliens,” it continued.

More from the Justice Department:

According to the lawsuit, the federal government sent relevant California officials a list of more than 20,000 names of people that it believes are likely noncitizens who were sent a vote-by-mail ballot from California to participate in the federal election. The federal government asked California to review the list and, in partnership with federal agencies, to determine whether citizens were listed. California failed to do so.

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“State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. “If found responsible in a court of law, the State of California will have seriously undermined confidence in our electoral system and violated laws that protect our nation’s representative system of government. The Department of Justice will continue working to uncover cases of voter fraud, hold fraudsters accountable, and restore trust in American elections.”

“California election officials were given an opportunity to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls and to sequester ballots returned from suspected ineligible voters. They refused,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “We are taking California to federal court to demand that the votes of American citizens not be diluted by noncitizens.”

“It is unlawful for noncitizens to vote in federal elections,” said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“The Department of Homeland Security and our federal partners reviewed publicly available California voter-registration files and compared relevant records with federal immigration data to identify alien registrants. This preliminary analysis has identified a significant number of individuals in California who are likely noncitizens and appear to be registered to vote; the analysis and review remain ongoing. This is completely unacceptable — as even one noncitizen vote cancels out the ballot of an American citizen and undermines our elections. DHS is committed to identifying unlawful voting, protecting the integrity of federal elections, and ensuring that only eligible American citizens elect America’s leaders,” he continued.

“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,” he added.

“Time is up for California. We gave California 48 hours to review and flag more than 20,000 noncitizen voters recently mailed live ballots. California refused,” Essayli wrote on X.

“This morning we filed a federal court action seeking an emergency order requiring California to sequester ballots returned by suspected noncitizens. This is not political or controversial. 18 U.S.C. § 611 makes it a federal offense for noncitizens to vote in a federal election. We will not allow California to dilute the votes of American citizens,” he added.

CBS News shared further:

In the letter that McCotter sent to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, he enclosed a password-protected thumb drive that he said contained names compiled by the Department of Homeland Security, and imposed a 48-hour deadline for the clerk’s office to review the list.

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Dean Logan, the registrar-recorder and clerk, said in a statement responding to McCotter’s demands that the county would not be reviewing the materials on the thumb drive because doing so would conflict with “established data privacy and information security protocols.” He said the device was not considered a “secure medium.”

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, meanwhile, said the Justice Department had not provided the list of names and blasted the Trump administration for what it said were “unsubstantiated claims” that California had 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls.

In Thursday’s lawsuit, the Justice Department accused the state of failing to work with the federal government to correct the alleged problems with its voter rolls.

“The Federal Government asked California to work collaboratively to identify any noncitizens registered to vote in the State. California made no serious effort to do so,” the lawsuit said.

“The United States thus seeks commonplace election relief when a ballot is called into question. This Court should enjoin California from presently tabulating vote-by-mail ballots from likely noncitizens in the upcoming federal election until the voter’s citizenship status can be determined,” it added.

 

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