The Justice Department announced on Monday it was charging 28 noncitizens with election crimes in California, signaling a further escalation over the state's voting system that looks like it will continue through Election Day and beyond. The DOJ also filed an emergency request in federal court to stop California from processing ballots returned by people on the voter rolls whom the federal government says are "likely noncitizens." The state has asked for specific information on how the federal government came to its conclusions, but has not received it. "This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections," Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said at a press conference on Monday announcing the election crime charges.
"Unfortunately the same can't be said for California and L.A. County." Noncitizen voting has never been found to be a widespread problem in American elections, but the Trump administration is devoting significant resources to uncovering the ineligible voting that does occur. The DOJ has been announcing handfuls of new charges almost every day as early voting gets underway in many states.
The Justice Department's latest request in federal court is a continuation of a saga that began this summer with President Trump's primetime speech on election integrity. It took a major turn last week with the delivery of a flash drive to Los Angeles County that contained 20,000 names and a 48-hour deadline to investigate them. Local and state officials declined to do so, and the federal government sued.
McCotter escalated the dispute further on Friday by warning California officials in a letter that they could be criminally prosecuted for knowingly processing ballots "cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens." President Trump wrote on Truth Social that evening: "They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!" Taken together, the threats have local officials and election experts worried that the adversarial posture of the Justice Department towards California portends more actions to come aimed at delegitimizing results in this fall's midterms. "There's a few things to be worried about," said Rick Hasen, an election law expert who runs UCLA's Safeguarding Democracy Project. "One is the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters.
The other is the risk that it further undermines voter confidence in the electoral process by making it seem like [noncitizen voting] is a major problem when it is not. And the third risk is that this is going to be used as some sort of pretext to try to seize ballots or interfere after the election is over." Dana Lewis, the Republican county recorder for Pinal County, Ariz., said local officials nationwide are watching and communicating about what's happening in California, the same way they did when the FBI raided an elections office in Fulton County, Ga. in January. If those officials are administering a race this fall that is close or contested, they feel they could be next, she said.
"When this impacts another jurisdiction, you automatically have to feel that," Lewis said. "If it's happening in Georgia, if it's happening in Colorado or California, we're all watching." All 28 people charged in California on Monday are green-card holders, and all appeared on the list of 20,000 names the DOJ gave California officials last week, according to DOJ officials. A number of them do not appear to have actually voted, and some registered to vote more than 20 years ago.
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