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US Justice Department sues California, seeks to pause counting of about 20,000 mail ballots tied to alleged noncitizens
The DOJ filed suit Oct. 15 in Los Angeles federal court asking California to hold ballots from about 20,000 voters it calls likely noncitizens until citizenship is verified; Gov. Newsom calls it voter suppression and Secretary of State Weber refuses to comply.
Why it matters
Less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms, the federal government and California are headed for a courtroom showdown over voter eligibility checks. The Justice Department wants a judge to order California to pause counting mail ballots from about 20,000 voters flagged by federal agencies as likely noncitizens until their citizenship is verified; California officials dispute the reliability of the federal data and Washington's authority over state election administration.
What the lawsuit says
The complaint was filed Oct. 15 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The DOJ says a multiagency review by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, matching state voter rolls against federal citizenship records, identified with "high confidence" about 20,000 California registrants as likely noncitizens, a finding Homeland Security Investigations concurred with. Because California mails a ballot to every registered voter, the suit says nearly 20,000 likely noncitizens have been sent, or will receive, vote-by-mail ballots, and asks the court to bar their tabulation pending citizenship verification.
The filing follows an Oct. 13 letter from Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter giving Secretary of State Shirley Weber 48 hours to review a list delivered on a password-protected thumb drive to Los Angeles County. Federal officials had previously put the figure at 190,000; the complaint is the first to fix the number at about 20,000.
California's rebuttal
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit an attempt by the Trump administration to suppress California voters and said the federal figures were fabricated. Weber said her office would not disenfranchise tens of thousands of people on the basis of data and methods the federal government had not explained; Los Angeles County election officials declined to open the encrypted drive, citing security and evidence concerns.
Election experts warn that federal immigration database matches can mistakenly flag people who have since become naturalized citizens, and research has found confirmed noncitizen voting to be rare.
What happens next
The court has not yet ruled on the DOJ's injunction request. California began mailing ballots in early October and state law restricts roll changes close to an election, so the judge must weigh the government's enforcement demand against election administration rules.
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