Trump administration threatens to sue California over alleged noncitizens on rolls

The Trump administration is threatening legal action against California if it allows people on a list of alleged noncitizens to vote.

Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesperson Kiersten Pels confirmed to Democracy Docket that the department “has sent letters to California election officials demanding immediate action to ensure that noncitizens do not vote in the upcoming federal election.”

A letter sent by the DOJ to California’s secretary of state was first reported by Reuters.

The DOJ gave California officials 48 hours to comb through a “password-protected thumb drive” provided to Los Angeles County with names of people the Trump administration “believes are likely noncitizens,” Reuters reported. 

It’s not clear whether the administration provided evidence to support its claims.

Noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare, and there is no credible evidence that it has swayed an election. In the administration’s search for noncitizens on state voter rolls, it has mistakenly flagged eligible voters as potential noncitizens.

The DOJ then wants California to refuse to send a ballot to those voters until their citizenship status is confirmed, according to Reuters. If they were already sent a ballot, then the DOJ wants any returned by people on the list not to be counted unless they can verify their citizenship.

The federal government “will have no choice but to seek emergency relief” if California doesn’t comply, the letter warned, according to Reuters. 

California, a universal vote-by-mail state, began sending ballots to its more than 20 million voters on Oct. 5.

“Federal law is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections. The Department will take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal law,” Pels told Democracy Docket.

Reuters said the letter was sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber (D) by acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter. The California Secretary of State’s Office didn’t immediately return Democracy Docket’s request for comment.

It’s not clear how many alleged noncitizens the DOJ put on the list provided to Los Angeles County, or how they came up with this list of names.

In July, California was one of four states singled out by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the administration’s hunt for noncitizen voters.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed more than 190,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in California, though he did not specify how the department obtained the voter registration data.

Weber, California’s secretary of state, said at the time she had “serious doubts about the reliability” of the DOJ’s data. She said DHS gave them no information that could be used to verify the claim.