Trump administration sues California in bid to squash ballots it claims went to thousands of noncitizens

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued California on Thursday just moments after the 48-hour deadline it gave election officials to review an unverified list of thousands of alleged noncitizens the Trump administration claims are illegally registered to vote.

The lawsuit, which marks a new attempt by the Trump administration to exert federal control over the midterm elections, accuses California of knowingly facilitating noncitizen voting and asks a federal court to stop the state from counting ballots DOJ believes may have gone to noncitizens.

“Days ago, the Federal Government reiterated this serious concern with exacting details. It sent relevant California officials a list of over 20,000 names of people the Federal Government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent a vote-by-mail ballot from California to participate in the federal election,” the DOJ wrote.

“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.

The filing revealed for the first time the number of alleged noncitizens it flagged to California officials just two days ago – and a week after mail ballots started going out to the Sunshine State’s 23 million registered voters.

The 20,000 number is significantly lower than the administration’s claim back in July that more than 190,000 noncitizens were on California’s rolls.

California was one of four states singled out by the Department of Homeland Security this summer as having tens of thousands of noncitizens registered to vote. The administration’s sweeping assertions in other states also fizzled dramatically. In Nevada, the number of potential noncitizens flagged went from 15,903 to 185 to zero.

California officials heavily pushed back on the administration’s demands, saying there was no legal authority for its request.

In Thursday’s filing, the DOJ leaned on 18 U.S.C. § 611 – a federal statute prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections – and the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, contending the federal government has an obligation to step in if states won’t.

But the lawsuit doesn’t provide any legal authority that would give the federal government the authority to dictate how California administers elections and processes ballots, a power given to states by the Constitution’s elections clause.

California already requires residents to check a box to confirm citizenship and sign an attestation under penalty of perjury when registering to vote.

The DOJ also fired a warning shot at election officials, writing that “Persons also can be in violation of federal law for aiding and abetting, or otherwise facilitating, the federal crime of noncitizen voting” under 18 U.S.C. § 2. Prosecuting officials under that statute, as the administration has long threatened, would require it to prove that officials acted knowingly or willingly.

Yet, by DOJ’s own admission in Thursday’s filings, the list it provided to California contains names of people they consider “likely noncitizens” and more investigation is needed.

“To be sure, the United States actively investigates and prosecutes incidents of unlawful voting,” the DOJ wrote. “But it is not practicable or feasible for the United States to investigate before the 2026 election concludes thousands, let alone tens of thousands, of individuals that two federal investigative offices identified on the California voter roster as likely being sent vote-by-mail ballots.”

The California governor’s office and secretary of state’s office didn’t immediately reply to Democracy Docket’s request for comment on the lawsuit.