Poli Alert Politics & Civics
Related Articles
Three weeks before the midterm elections, the Trump administration went to federal court Thursday seeking an order to force California to purge 20,000 people from its voter rolls over claims they are not U.S. citizens.
The Department of Justice sued the state, asking a judge to validate its claim that California is willfully allowing noncitizens to vote in the Nov. 3 elections. The suit seeks a judicial order blocking the state from counting mail ballots sent to registered voters the administration says are noncitizens. Ballots for this year’s general election already went out Oct. 1, per reporting on the filing.
The thumb drive nobody would open
The fight centers on a thumb drive the federal government sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan. Both declined to open it Wednesday.
Logan said the drive was unvetted and opening it would violate the office’s security protocols. The DOJ’s complaint calls that refusal a major obstacle to enforcing federal voting laws.
“By sending ballots to likely noncitizens despite the Federal Government notifying California of serious concerns, Defendants (collectively, California) have made it nearly impossible for the United States to investigate and enforce federal law,” the suit said. “This is a substantial drain on federal resources. In addition, when aliens illegally vote in elections, they dilute the votes of citizens and unduly influence who runs the Federal Government. That also undermines public faith in federal elections.”
The suit also notes California sends ballots to every registered voter in every election without distinguishing among state, local, or federal elections. Only citizens can vote in state and federal elections, though San Francisco allows noncitizens to vote in some local elections.
The pushback: “set the stage for false claims”
David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, questioned the administration’s motivation on a press call Thursday afternoon. He noted the suit omits months of state efforts to work with the federal government to identify noncitizens on the rolls.
The administration estimated months ago that 190,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in California. State officials asked for the methodology and the names. They never got a response, Becker said. Instead, the DOJ blindsided the state and Los Angeles County with a letter demanding voter files be removed just weeks from Election Day.
“I don’t know what their motivation is, but I can tell you what their motivation isn’t, because if they were seeking to work in good faith to clean up the voter list that they believed had issues, they would have done this months ago in a much different fashion,” Becker said.
“It does raise questions as to whether or not the sole purpose of this is to set the stage for false claims about election theft after an election that the president might be worried his party was going to do poorly in.”
Becker also flagged that the thumb drive arrived in an envelope with a handwritten note containing the password, calling it a serious red flag for cybersecurity experts. Election offices, he noted, do not just plug in random thumb drives for good reason.
Representatives for Logan and Weber did not immediately return messages seeking comment Thursday.
Why it matters for us
This is the playbook in real time: a lawsuit filed weeks before an election asking a court to block ballots from being counted, in the country’s largest state, targeting voters the administration labels as noncitizens without the state having verified a single name on the list. Whether the suit is about election integrity or about building a case to dispute the results, the effect on voters is the same. Confusion, delay, and doubt get injected into the process right when people are voting.
Watch whether other states get the same treatment, and whether a judge grants an order that stops ballots from being counted before anyone has proven a single one was cast illegally.
