The US Justice Department has ordered at least 18 California counties to identify and set aside ballots it believes may have been cast by non-citizens, escalating a dispute with state election officials ahead of the midterm elections.
County registrars were given 48 hours to provide identifying information for voters suspected by federal authorities of being illegally registered, including Social Security numbers, identification details and copies of registration records.
The letters also ask officials to sequester ballots where citizenship cannot be verified. The department said it was seeking co-operation to protect the election, rather than directing counties to cancel registrations or carry out a systematic purge.
“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” said Bill Essayli, the first assistant US attorney.
The demands have been resisted by California’s secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar. Lawyers for the state argue that the federal government’s data is unreliable and that the requests could disenfranchise eligible voters, delay certification and undermine confidence in November’s election.
The California attorney general’s office has said the information supplied by federal officials contains errors. In one example cited in a court filing, officials in Mendocino County received a list of people who were not residents of the county.
San Bernardino County received a list naming 1,133 people whom the Justice Department suspects of being non-citizens illegally registered to vote. In Napa County, registrar John Tuteur said the names of 42 alleged non-citizen voters were delivered by two uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers on Friday afternoon.
Mr Tuteur said about 11,000 mail-in ballots had already been cast in Napa County, where roughly 86,000 people are registered to vote. “We’re not changing anything we’re doing. We’re proceeding with the election,” he said.
More than 23 million registered voters in California have been sent ballots by post, and the state has told the court that more than 330,000 mail-in ballots have already been counted.
Justice Department lawsuit over California ballots
The latest action follows a federal lawsuit targeting Los Angeles County and the California secretary of state’s office. The Justice Department is seeking to prevent the counting of ballots from more than 20,000 people it describes as “likely” non-citizen voters.
A hearing in that case is due to take place on Tuesday. The Trump administration has also asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene before the district judge rules, setting a deadline of Saturday.
The federal government’s campaign has included a statewide operation in which 28 people from the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote. Some also face allegations of illegal voting and lying on naturalisation paperwork.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has filed 31 lawsuits seeking unredacted voter-roll data from states. It has said the aim is to ensure accurate registers, while acknowledging that the information is also intended to be shared with Homeland Security to screen for non-citizens.
However, illegal voting by non-citizens is described in the material as extremely rare, difficult to prove and not shown to have altered the outcome of elections. The Justice Department has so far lost 26 of its voter-roll cases and has not secured a legal victory.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels said the department was “not requesting a purge, cancellation of registrations, or any programmatic action”, but was seeking collaboration to ensure “the most secure election in California history”.
