Justice Department gives California counties 48 hours to set aside ballots it says may belong to noncitizens

Federal prosecutors have given California county election officials 48 hours to help identify suspected noncitizens on voter rolls and to set aside their mail ballots pending citizenship checks, in a major escalation of the Justice Department’s noncitizen-voting crackdown weeks before the US midterm elections (Reuters, Associated Press).

Letters sent on Friday to county registrars across California warned officials they could face “significant federal scrutiny” if they refused to comply, the New York Times reported, according to Reuters. The 48-hour window set on Friday expires on Sunday; no county compliance response had been reported as of Sunday morning. The letters included lists of people the department believes are illegally registered to vote, described as a subset of 20,000 people statewide it identified last week as possible noncitizens who may have received ballots.

At least 18 counties have received similar letters, the Los Angeles County registrar’s office told the Associated Press, while First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli told NBC4 the letters went to every county in the state. For voters whose citizenship cannot be confirmed, the letter asks officials to “segregate — not cancel — those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined”.

“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” Essayli said, according to the Associated Press.

The move follows a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month against Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State’s office seeking to block counting votes of roughly 20,000 people the administration says are “likely” noncitizen voters, with a hearing scheduled for Tuesday. The Associated Press notes that data shows illegal voting by noncitizens is incredibly rare and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.