California Says No, and the Courts Will Decide

In a democracy, the act of voting is meant to be an affirmation of citizenship, a small ritual that carries the weight of belonging. When the federal government alleges that thousands of people who do not belong to that category may have received ballots, the question of who gets to vote becomes not just a legal matter but a test of trust in the systems that govern it.

The Trump administration sued California election officials Thursday, asking a federal judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots for next month's midterm elections from people the federal government has identified as "likely" noncitizens until their status can be confirmed . The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, argues that California "made no serious effort" to work with the federal government to identify noncitizens registered to vote .

The dispute centers on a password-protected thumb drive delivered to California election officials this week, containing a list of approximately 20,000 names the federal government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots . Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said his office received the letter and the drive, along with a "handwritten note providing a password" to access the list. He said he did not consider the thumb drive a secure device and had not accessed any files .

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat named in the lawsuit, responded in a letter calling the demand to refuse to count already mailed ballots "unprecedented" and the timeline for action impossible. "This is an emergency of the DOJ's creation," she wrote. "California's election administration will continue to be governed by applicable federal and state law, not by unsubstantiated claims and outrageous demands" .

Governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit "a desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day." He added: "The courts have made clear that the federal government has no role in how a state carries out its election process" .

The federal government's methodology has drawn scrutiny. According to the Justice Department's complaint, the list was compiled by taking California voter rolls, running them through third-party databases, and checking them against government immigration files. Those without evidence of citizenship were deemed "likely noncitizens" . The federal government initially claimed in a letter this summer that California had 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls—a figure that has since dropped to approximately 20,000, with no public explanation for the discrepancy .

David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, suggested the timing and method of the lawsuit raised questions about its purpose. "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," he said. He added that sending a thumb drive with a handwritten password was "a serious red flag for cybersecurity experts" .

California sends mail-in ballots to every registered voter in every election. Ballots for this year's general election went out October 1 . The lawsuit seeks an emergency court order to block the state from counting ballots from the flagged individuals until their citizenship can be verified.

Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and the Justice Department has made the hunt for noncitizen voters a priority this year, though studies show the problem is exceptionally rare . The case now moves to a federal judge, who will weigh the government's claims against the state's insistence that its election process remains sound.

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Sources: Associated Press, The Canadian Press, Washington Times, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, News From The States