President Trump and the Justice Department just put Los Angeles County election officials on notice: knowingly counting unlawful ballots could bring federal criminal exposure.

The president drove the warning home in unmistakable Trump fashion, declaring, “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”

That thunderbolt followed a formal warning from First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who said federal agencies identified more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens on California’s voter rolls who had already been mailed ballots.

Essayli cited 18 U.S.C. Sections 611 and 2, arguing that officials who knowingly tabulate unlawful ballots could be accused of aiding and abetting a federal offense.

The Justice Department urged Los Angeles County and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber to temporarily segregate the ballots connected to the flagged registrations while citizenship is verified.

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The warning comes one day after the Justice Department sued California over the dispute. According to the federal complaint, Homeland Security Investigations compared public voter-registration files with federal immigration records and identified more than 20,000 people the government considers likely noncitizens.

Those are allegations now before a federal court, not final findings that every person on the list is ineligible. The government is asking for a temporary set-aside so the ballots are not tabulated until officials determine the voters’ citizenship status.

The Gateway Pundit reports that the latest warning followed an earlier Justice Department demand giving California officials 48 hours to address the flagged registrations. When that deadline passed, federal lawyers moved into court and asked a judge to stop ballots tied to those names from being counted while the citizenship review proceeds.

The report says the concern is especially acute because California automatically mails a ballot to every registered voter. That means a registration problem can become an active ballot problem before Election Day, which is why the Justice Department is pressing for segregation now instead of trying to unwind the count later.

The federal government says it supplied California with identifying information for the people it flagged, including names, addresses and dates of birth, and says immigration files provide the basis for its assessment. State officials have not accepted the government’s conclusion and argue that election administration remains a state responsibility.

President Trump then amplified the stakes with his jail warning. The legal line in the Justice Department’s position is knowledge: the threat is aimed at officials who would knowingly tabulate ballots determined to be unlawful, not workers simply carrying out routine election duties while the court fight is unresolved.

California Democrats immediately pushed back. Sen. Alex Padilla accused the administration of trying to block 20,000 ballots without evidence and said the Constitution gives states authority to administer elections.

Essayli fired right back. He said the Justice Department gave California the names, addresses and birth dates of the suspected noncitizens, while U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services holds the underlying alien files.

That exchange gets to the heart of the showdown. California says the federal government has not justified blocking the ballots.

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The Justice Department says it has provided concrete immigration-record matches and wants the state to show contrary evidence before those ballots enter the count.

Now a federal judge will decide what happens next. But the administration’s message to Los Angeles County could not be clearer: if election officials knowingly count ballots cast by ineligible noncitizens, the Justice Department is prepared to treat that as a federal crime.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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