DOJ withheld key data from court-ordered voter list disclosure, experts say

Experts reviewing the Trump administration’s list of nearly 21,000 people it alleges may be noncitizens registered to vote in California say the Department of Justice (DOJ) handed over a stripped-down version of the data that appears different from the file previously sent to state and local election officials.

The finding raises new questions about the government’s compliance with a federal judge’s order requiring it to disclose the 20,000-person list at the center of a lawsuit challenging the administration’s voter investigations.

Data scientists working with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) said the file DOJ produced Friday contained just eight data fields and omitted the California voter identification number — which they called the “single most critical column” for accurately matching people to the state voter file.

The experts also said the file name itself ends with “reduced columns,” while prior declarations from federal officials described a spreadsheet containing roughly 30 fields, including voter registration dates, addresses, phone numbers and other information.

Most strikingly, the experts said the file they received was created Oct. 30 — the day DOJ turned it over — and listed DOJ attorney Ty Trejo as its author. The original list sent to California officials had been produced weeks earlier.

“The file we received does not appear to be the identical file produced to Los Angeles County and the State of California,” UCLA political scientist Matt Barreto and data scientist Michael Rios wrote.

The experts did not assert that DOJ violated the court’s disclosure order, and U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has not ruled that the department failed to comply. But their findings could become significant as the court examines whether CHIRLA has standing to pursue its challenge to the administration’s broader campaign targeting alleged noncitizen voters.

Boasberg ordered DOJ to turn over the list so CHIRLA could determine whether any of its members appeared on it.

That review produced another major finding: Barreto and Rios said they are certain at least 22 CHIRLA members who are naturalized U.S. citizens appear on the federal government’s list. They identified another 66 members as “near certain” matches and hundreds more as highly likely matches.

Using broader matching criteria similar to those employed by DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the experts said as many as 6,140 CHIRLA member citizen entries could be flagged as probable matches to the government’s list.

CHIRLA argues those findings strengthen its claim that its members face a concrete threat from the administration’s voter investigations.

In supplemental briefing filed Saturday, the organization said its members could face removal from voter rolls, challenges to their ballots or even erroneous criminal investigations because of their inclusion on the government’s list.

DOJ pushed back Sunday, asking Boasberg to require CHIRLA to provide the government with the identities of the alleged matches and evidence that those individuals are actually members of the organization before the judge considers the information.

The department also argued that even confirmed matches would not necessarily establish CHIRLA’s standing. DOJ said the organization must still connect those members to the voting-related fears and injuries alleged in the lawsuit, arguing that otherwise those harms remain speculative and are not fairly traceable to the government’s conduct.

“Whether or not any CHIRLA citizen members appear on the challenged list is irrelevant to CHIRLA’s associational standing if Plaintiffs cannot connect such individuals to the alleged fears surrounding voting,” DOJ argued.

The experts also questioned the reliability of the federal list itself.

After comparing all 20,930 names against California’s current voter file, they said 8,880 — about 42% — could not be found at all. They said more precise matching would have been possible if DOJ had included voter identification numbers in the data it produced.

Barreto and Rios described the list as containing “extensive errors, duplications” and missing information. They warned that applying the government’s matching methodology more broadly could generate large numbers of false matches involving eligible U.S. citizens.

The latest filings come as CHIRLA seeks to keep alive its lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to identify alleged noncitizens on state voter rolls. Boasberg had questioned whether the organization could show a sufficiently concrete injury to establish standing.

CHIRLA now argues the government’s own list answers that question: its members are on it — and the version DOJ produced may not even contain all the information needed to determine exactly who else has been swept up.